Gardaí are hoping that doctors will be able to assist them as they try to establish what happened to a homeless man who was found unconscious and with marks on his head in a tent where he was living rough in west Cork.
Gardaí and the emergency services were alerted at about 10.30am on Wednesday and went to the tent on waste ground at Youghals near the Model Village in Clonakilty, where they found a 42-year-old Polish man unresponsive and with marks to his head.
The man was rushed by ambulance to Cork University Hospital, where doctors in the emergency department immediately set about trying to raise his body temperature as he was found to be dangerously hypothermic.
Tests also revealed that the man had a high blood/alcohol concentration. Gardaí are trying to establish whether the man suffered the injuries to his head as a result of fall due to being intoxicated or whether he may have suffered them during an exchange with another party.
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They are hoping that doctors will be able to assist them once they are able to carry out tests and scans on the injured man, but in the meantime he remains in a critical condition in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
Gardaí believe the man had been living in the tent at Youghals off the Inchydoney Road in Clonakilty for approximately eight days. They are trying to establish his movements over the last week or so in the run-up to his discovery on Wednesday morning.
The man, who had been living previously in a flat in Clonakilty and also in accommodation in nearby Timoleague, had been sharing the tent with a 32-year-old Polish man since he became homeless. Gardaí have taken a witness statement from this second man.
Investigators are anxious to speak to anyone who travelled the Inchydoney Road between Friday, November 22nd, and Wednesday morning, November 27th, and may have dashcam or mobile phone footage. They can be contacted at Clonakilty Garda station on 023- 8821570.
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