SIXTEEN MONTHS ON from the death of her husband, Laurena Meagher Fogarty is still waiting to get answers over how he died.
She was only married to Kevin for four weeks when he died in London after complaints of back pain.
Speaking on The Ray D’Arcy show on RTÉ Radio 1 this afternoon, Meagher Fogarty described the bureaucratic nightmare that followed, where she has yet to receive a death certificate.
‘My body is shutting down’
Having been childhood sweethearts in school, the pair had two children before they got married towards the end of 2016.
Just a month after the wedding, they went to visit a family member in London and shortly after Kevin began to feel pain in his back.
Laurena said: “The next morning he wasn’t in great form. He just said he didn’t feel well. He said he’d have something to eat but he didn’t eat it.
He just said ‘I feel like my body is shutting down’. I think he described it perfectly. Obviously, I didn’t feel it at the time. He wouldn’t have been serious at all, but he was very serious that day.
She described telling her children – aged five and eight at the time – that their dad had died.
“They’re amazing. I told them on the Sunday morning, first thing,” she said. “As far as they were aware Daddy had fainted. They were very sad, I promised them we’d be okay and everything would be okay.”
‘I feel powerless’
After an initial post mortem from which they received no further information, she consented for the coroner to take tissue samples from Kevin and was told that, as he died at the beginning of December, the results probably wouldn’t be available that side of Christmas.
“Another Christmas has passed and we still don’t have those results,” she said.
D’Arcy asked Laurena: “So you’ve lost your husband and you have no idea why he died?”. She replied: “Yes.
It’s very difficult. I feel powerless. I have rang them repeatedly. I have emailed them. They’re very blasé. They just don’t have an answer yet.
Despite numerous attempts to chase up the delay in the results, and the intervention of local councillor Frank O’Rourke, no details about Kevin’s death has yet been given to his family.
The show had contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs to see if they’d assist with her case, and it responded: “Many thanks for getting in touch. The Embassy in London and the Consular Assistance team in Dublin had not been made aware of this case. We stand ready to provide consular assistance if requested to do so by Mrs Fogarty. If contact details can be provided for Mrs Fogarty a member of the consular assistance team will follow up directly.”
D’Arcy also asked Laurena how she’s getting on now.
“Children keep you going,” she said. “I’ve got good people around me. It’s a struggle but I’m okay. [We were] 14, 15 years together.
It was completely out of the blue. So, so sudden… Kevin will be a constant presence in our life. That’s how we want it to be.
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