Cork woman recounts car crash that ‘changed our lives forever’ ten years on

On December 4, 2016, Mary Bermingham and Gary Fenton, both in their thirties, left their Mallow home with their four young children, aged from six to 14, and headed for a Christmas festival in Waterford.

“I took the kids on a day trip to see Santa, and we all had our Christmas jumpers on, and headed out in great form, and we were hit head-on by a drunk driver,” she remembers.

“And what should have been a nice day, nice memories, and visiting Santa, ended up with us being taken to intensive care and not getting home until March the following year.” 

Just outside of Dungarvan, their Citroen Picasso was struck by a Volkswagen Golf travelling on the wrong side of the road. The Golf burst into flames on impact, killing all three occupants.

The driver had a blood alcohol concentration of 221mg, more than four times the legal limit, and he also had traces of cocaine and other drugs in his system.

Mary, originally from Churchfield, and Gary, from Cobh, were left with catastrophic injuries, and they and one of their children had to be airlifted to Cork University Hospital (CUH).

She describes her months in hospital as “absolutely hell on Earth”.

“Pain, anguish, the mental torture, reliving the crash over and over in my head, my mind just wouldn’t let me even sleep.

“If I fell asleep, I kind of felt like I was on a rollercoaster, my whole body was jittering and moving, and then I would just come to an abrupt wake, sweating, and then the physical pain”.

A spinal injury meant she was unable to sit up for six weeks, so she had to spend all of that time lying at 30 degrees looking at the ceiling.

“I had broken legs, broken ribs, a broken hand, and internal bleeding. I was resuscitated four times.

“I just feel like I went through absolute hell, and then I had the worry of my children. 

"They were in different hospital beds, one was in a different hospital completely, and my partner as well, he was in intensive care. I didn’t see him for weeks,” she says.

“It was hell. Christmas came and went and rang in the new year, and I heard the fireworks outside the window. Still in pain, still in hospital. It was suffering, completely.” 

Diagnosed with PTSD, Mary struggled with depression in the wake of her hospitalisation.

“There were some days I just didn't want to get up, I didn’t want to get dressed but somehow I pushed myself every day. I have four kids, so I had to get up for them and move on. 

"And life goes on, and everybody does move on, but the pain... I’m back on crutches. Sometimes my back might go. I’ve never forgotten about it,” she says.

“Even a simple thing in December, like putting up the Christmas decorations. I had done that a few days before the accident. So that always triggers me as well.

“Something as nice as putting up your decorations, I remember ‘I did this’. 

"I don't even hang the same decorations. I got completely different decorations, something so trivial, but it was just something that was upsetting me so much, I just changed them completely.” 

 The weight of the crash and all it wrought has left her in a state of near-constant worry, she says.

“I worried when my eldest daughter started to drive, and I couldn’t even go with her. 

"I’ve never been in the car with her. I can’t, I just worry so much, I’d put her off, and I don’t want to frighten her into being nervous.

“You know, there’s loads of things that came with it that I’ve never gotten over. Nine years on now, and it’s still as fresh to me now as it was that day when I woke up.” 

Two years before the crash that upended her own life, Mary had suffered a terrible bereavement when her 24-year-old brother was killed in a single-car road accident.

“He was the only person in the car, he was killed, and I was dealing with that fallout when I had my own accident.

“So, I see it from both sides, we recovered, and we’re all here, thank God. 

"But also, I’ve prayed for the 22-year-old that died in my crash. There was three people died in my crash, but the driver was 22 I have a son who’s 22 now, and they think they're invincible. 

"They think it won’t be them and it won’t happen to them.

“But I can't tell you the amount of anguish that I’ve had from that. 

"And I do pray for them as well. I really do, their whole lives are gone. 

"They’ve paid the ultimate price.” 

 Anyone who gets behind the wheel of a car while impaired or while distracted by their phone is “playing Russian Roulette out with a loaded gun”, she says.

Mary's traumatic experiences have made her a passionate advocate for road safety, and she regularly makes public appeals that people pay more attention when driving.

She spoke recently at a joint briefing by An Garda Síochána and the Road Safety Authority in Mallow, at which Inspector Fergal O’Donovan, who is in charge of roads policing in Cork county, said 17 people had, by that date in mid-December, died in Cork city and county in 2025.

That figure compares to the 19 road deaths recorded in the city and county across the 12 months of 2024, which had in turn marked a 30% increase on the 15 people who died on Cork roads over the previous year, 2023.

Nationally, 189 people have died on Irish roads since the start of this year, already a 9% increase on the 174 road fatalities recorded across the 12 months of 2024.

Mary Bermingham says that people who don’t wear seatbelts are taking a terrible risk, and she has a particular horror for those who drive with small children in the front of the car.

Given her own experience nine years ago, she strongly believes that anyone who gets behind the wheel of a car while impaired or while distracted by their phone is “playing Russian Roulette out with a loaded gun”.

On the roads, life can change in the blink of an eye, Mary observes, and nobody ever imagines something terrible will happen to them.

“We all had Christmas jumpers on, we were set up for a nice day out, and then suddenly it was just one second of realising there was somebody head-on right in front of us, and it was over, and it changed our lives forever.”