A Longford farmer suffered fatal head injuries after falling 16 feet to the ground while accessing bales of hay in a shed two years ago, an inquest has heard. Kevin Skelly (53) died at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin on May 9, 2022 from injuries he had sustained six weeks earlier on his farm at Carrickboy, Co Longford. A sitting of Dublin District Coroner's Court on Thursday heard the married father of four had been discovered by one of his children on the ground in the farmyard near their family home on the evening of March 28, 2022. In a statement provided to the coroner, Mr Skelly's son, Joseph, said he had returned from visiting a neighbour with his mother at around 6.30pm that evening.
Sometime later he went to a shed in the farmyard and found his father lying face down on the ground. He said there was no response from his father when he tried to shake him and ask him questions. The boy said he stayed with his father until an ambulance arrived but the victim's eyes had remained closed and his breathing was heavy. The deceased's wife, Catherine Skelly, gave evidence that she had last seen her husband at 7am that morning. She recalled rushing home after being alerted by the emergency services to an incident at the family farm. She said her family were not totally sure what happened to him but they assumed he had a fall while using a ladder to access some bales of hay in a shed.
Garda Philip O'Keeffe from Edgeworthstown Garda station said the investigation into the farmer's death had concluded that he had hit his head on concrete and failed to regain consciousness after an unwitnessed fall. A report by the Health and Safety Authority into the incident also concluded that Mr Skelly, while possibly using a ladder, had fallen from a height as there was evidence a bale of hay had been disturbed. The inquest heard that the deceased also had some symptoms of arthritis in his knees as well as evidence of scarring of the tissue in his heart muscle which is known to cause an irregular heartbeat. Dr Keane said a postmortem showed Mr Skelly had died as a result of the severe head injuries he had suffered in the fall on his farm. Returning a verdict of accidental death, Dr Keane said it could not be ruled out that the farmer might have experienced some cardiac incident or some problem with his knee which caused him to fall but the answer would remain unknown
