Heartbroken Geraldine Mullan has spoken about the days before she lost her husband and two precious children in last year’s horrific car crash in Inishowen.
Geraldine yesterday appeared on Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ Radio 1.
The Moville woman spoke bravely about how wonderful her life was up until August last year when husband John (49) and her children Tomás (14) and Amelia (6) died when the family’s car plunged into Lough Foyle at Quigley’s Point on the way home from a family day out.
The oncology nurse revealed how she was off work with a back injury and her husband’s garden centre was closed as “precious family time”.
“It was simple things like a sleepover in the back garden or movie time or during our lovely coastal walk along the shore path… precious time with my beloved three,” she said.
Geraldine also spoke to the RTE presenter about the aftermath of the tragedy and the steps she had taken to honour the memory of her family.
She relived the day and told how herself and her family had enjoyed a lovely day out in Derry.
“It was just a lovely day out, we watched the Snow Queen and got the invariable popcorn and ice cream and then we did the bowling and then we had dinner. I have nothing but beautiful memories of the four of us laughing and joking and you know, planning our days ahead and what we were going to do.”
“I would have heard that saying that your life can change in a second and unfortunately for me on that night of August 20th, my life changed forever. It was the perfect storm, everything went against us and unfortunately I was the only one that that managed to survive.”
Geraldine again told how the weather conditions that night “were absolutely atrocious.”
She said when the emergency services did reach the car, they held on to her.
“I will admit there was a time I didn’t want [them] to hold on to me because I knew I’d lost everything.
“I knew by the time help came that unfortunately it wasn’t going to be a rescue, it was just going to be a search for John, Tomás and Amelia. So at one point I just asked him to ‘let me go’.”
She said the rescue worker apologised and said: “Geraldine, I can’t let you go.”
“I have to praise the valiant efforts of every single one of those emergency service [who] put their lives at risk and worked tremendously hard and found my beloved three so I could bring them home and I could say goodbye to them.
“I got to see my beloved family one last time and I got to bring them home, to have my couple of nights at home with them before the funeral on the Monday and before I said goodbye to them.”
She said now she was focussed on trying “to keep doing the best I can for John, Thomas and Amelia. … they were just so full of love and life and unfortunately all their lives were cut short abruptly on that night.”
Geraldine returned to work as an oncology nurse in February and has converted her husband’s garden centre into a community hub called the Hope Centre which she has dedicated to the memory of her family.
Next Friday – on Amelia’s eighth birthday – the hub will host a charity event dubbed Amelia’s Glad Rags for Hope details of which can be found on the Hope Facebook page: www.facebook.com/themullanhope
