A young woman has told Tralee Circuit Court she was never more scared in her life, after a van drove over her head twice.
Mollie Hegarty was giving evidence in the trial of 26-year-old Caimin Sheedy, of Rusheen, Firies.
Mr Sheedy is accused of driving the van over Ms Hegarty after bringing a group back to his mother’s house in Firies from a night out in Killarney in July 2022.
Mollie Hegarty and two friends were visiting Killarney from Cork for a night out on July 18, 2022, and they met Caimin Sheedy and two of his friends at The Grand Hotel, before all six got into his van at the end of the night.
The young women did not know the accused or his friends prior to the night in question.
Mollie Hegarty told the court she got out of the back of a van at a house she did not know, and as she went to re-enter the van it hit her and knocked her down.
She said the rear wheel then reversed over her head, and she saw the front wheel approach her head as she lay on the ground.
The van stopped, and then drove forward again, and Ms Hegarty said she again felt the same wheel drive over her head again.
She told the court her next memory is being in the ambulance, more scared than she had ever been in her life as she had no sensation at all in her body.
She sustained a broken neck, broken back, and had to have emergency surgery twice, while she also tore a section of skin off her scalp, and had to re-learn how to walk.
Ms Hegarty had been in the back of the van with her friend and one or two men, who were friends of the accused.
In cross-examination, Ms Hegarty said she would not get out of a moving van willingly, and in response to a question about alcohol being taken, she said she was aware of her surroundings.
Another friend of hers, Emer Burke, sat in the front of the van on the drive to Firies, and did not feel the van driving over anything at the house.
Another friend of hers, Arlene Finnegan, told the court she saw Ms Hegarty under the van but did not see the wheel drive over her head.
Mr Sheedy is represented by Séamus Roche SC, instructed by barrister Katie O'Connell and solicitor Eimear Griffin.
The trial continues this morning before Judge Alec Gabbett.
