Gardaí are to prepare a file for the Coroner’s Court following the death of an elderly woman in rural Cork. The pensioner who was found suffering from hypothermia at the roadside later died in hospital after a suspected heart attack.
Officers in Macroom believe that the 88-year-old woman, who was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's disease, got up in the middle of the night at her home near Aghabullogue in mid-Cork and drove to Rylane where she parked her car in a farmyard.
According to a Garda spokesman, it appears that the woman, who was living independently on her own but with family members living nearby, then walked more than a mile to Annagannihy Bridge where she was spotted lying in the ditch by a passing motorist at about 6.40am this morning.
The motorist raised the alarm and the emergency services treated the woman for hypothermia before taking her to Cork University Hospital where she subsequently died.
Gardaí are tracing the woman’s last-known movements and have established that she was last seen alive by family members on Tuesday evening. But they have carried out door-to-door inquiries in the Aghabullogue and Rylane areas to see if anyone noticed her late on Tuesday or early on Wednesday.
Gardaí are waiting on the results of a postmortem on Thursday but say there is nothing to suggest the pensioner was the victim of foul play.
