A 66-year-old man who was “meticulous” in wearing safety equipment when cycling died from a severe brain injury after falling from his bike, an inquest has heard.
A sitting of Dublin District Coroner’s Court heard that Conor Kenny, the head of a consultancy firm and author of several business books, died hours after setting off for a cycle to Ticknock woods in south Dublin.
Judith Kenny said her husband, who was a regular runner and cyclist, was “meticulous” about safety equipment, which he was wearing when he left for his cycle on August 4th, 2024.
She recalled ringing her husband several times after hearing “concerning” sirens near their home in Ballinteer in the hours after he left.
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Neville O’Connor, who was hiking on the day of Mr Kenny’s death, recalled seeing a cyclist pass him at a “fairly good speed” shortly before 1.30pm.
After Mr Kenny rounded a bend ahead and was out of sight, Mr O’Connor heard a “very loud bang like a bike hitting the ground”. He said there were no cars in the area at the time.
He ran to Mr Kenny who was still wearing his helmet, lying on the ground close to his bike and struggling to breathe. Mr O’Connor said he administered CPR until paramedics arrived and transferred him to St Vincent’s University Hospital.
Dr Patrick Hillery, a consultant in emergency medicine, said Mr Kenny arrived in cardiac arrest. After all possible avenues were exhausted, he was pronounced deceased some 35 minutes later, the doctor said.
He noted a significant volume of blood in Mr Kenny’s mouth “which would be consistent with an unprotected fall”. He believed Mr Kenny may have suffered a cardiac arrest before the fall.
Garda Jason McDonnell, a member of the roads policing unit at Blackrock Garda station, said Mr Kenny’s smartwatch recorded a “sharp and sudden” drop in speed from 13.06 metres per second (47km/h) to 0 metres per second at 1.28pm.
Garda McDonnell said the brakes and tyres of Mr Kenny’s bike were in good working order, and the site of the crash “wouldn’t be an area where you would have road traffic collisions”.
A postmortem recorded the medical cause of death as severe craniocerebral trauma and noted a finding of amyloid angiopathy, a condition that causes bleeding into the brain, which could have caused a spontaneous bleed before his crash.
Coroner Dr Clare Keane returned a narrative verdict, saying: “We are clear there was a fall from the bicycle, what we cannot conclude with certainty is whether the bleeding resulted from the fall or possibly precipitated it.”
