03 December 2007

Roads Claim Six Lives

Six people have died in a single weekend of carnage on Northern Ireland's roads.

The youngest victim was 17-year-old Karl McAuley. The talented GAA player died after the car he was driving crashed at Tobermore Road, Draperstown, County Londonderry, on Saturday. Sunday's Ulster Hurling Minor Championship Final was cancelled as a mark of respect to Karl, who played for Ballinascreen, where the hurling final was to be played.

Earlier, a mother and her daughter were killed in an accident on the Culmore Road, Londonderry. They were named as Bernie McElhinney, 57, and her daughter, Lisa Marie, who was 31 years old. Bernie McElhinney was well known for her work with the Weight Watchers organisation.

A man and a woman were killed in a head-on crash at 2am on Saturday on the notorious Frosses Road near Ballymena.

The woman who died in the crash, was Marjorie Kerr, 48, from Ballymoney and the family of the Co Antrim man killed in the same crash is now having to cope with a second tragedy in just three years.

Alastair Armstrong, a sheep farmer from Broughshane, died in the collision in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The 45-year-old father-of-three had lost his son, Aaron, in May 2004, when the 12-year-old Cambridge House pupil took his own life after being bullied.

Meanwhile, in Newscastle, Niall McGowan, 19, from Castlewellan died on Friday night. Several people were taken to hospital after that accident.

(BMcC)