The fiancee of the Deliveroo cyclist Thiago Cortes has told of how she found out he had been involved in a fatal hit-and-run incident in Dublin when a garda answered his phone.
Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast and RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show, Teresa Dantas called for those responsible to come forward as she did not want what happened to Thiago to happen to anyone else.
Ms Dantas said she knew something was wrong on Monday night when her fiance had not returned home at his usual time of between 11pm and 11.30pm. She thought he might still be delivering or that the battery in his phone had gone. At midnight, however, Ms Dantas said she received a message saying a Deliveroo driver had been involved in an accident.
“At that moment I felt it might be him. I tried to call him several times, but there was no answer. Then a guard answered his phone and said that he was in the hospital and he told me to go there,” she told Today with Claire Byrne.
Earlier on Newstalk Breakfast Ms Dantas said Thiago had been working for the delivery company for only 10 days. When she spoke with the garda she thought perhaps he had a broken leg or a broken arm – “something not that bad”.
But when the garda told her “don’t worry your fiance is alive” she thought his injuries must be very serious.
“I went to the hospital, I was with my flatmate – one of Thiago’s best, best friends – we got there, they let us in. The sergeant that answered the phone came to talk to me, saying he was in an accident, it was a hit-and-run and that I’ll be able to see him, that he was alive.
“We had over 24 hours to stay with him since the time that I found out about the accident and the time he died,” she said.
Her fiance had persuaded her to come to Ireland two-and-a-half years ago as he thought they would have a better life – “and we did have that here.”
The couple had been together for six years when he proposed on her birthday. They had not yet set a date but had been planning a civil service in Ireland at the end of the year with a church wedding and big party at a later stage, she explained.
Ms Dantas issued an appeal to the people involved in the hit and run. “Please come forward. If you know something tell the gardaí. We need to know something.
“Unfortunately it happened, but it could happen again. I don’t want it to happen to anyone in the future. These people have to answer for what they did.”