Irishman critical in Lithuanian ICU following seven-storey fall
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info
A fundraising drive has been met with a wave of support for an Irishman critically injured after a seven-storey fall in Lithuania.
David (Daithi) Manley is fighting through a serious condition in ICU, having sustained multiple injuries from the tumble, including broken bones and a severe injury to his lower left spine leaving him without sensation or movement from his waist down. His family say that urgent spinal surgery is required, yet David's respiratory and cardiac complications render his current state too precarious for operation.
Hopes are pinned on future surgery that could alleviate David's spinal cord pressure and potentially restore leg mobility. His sister Aoife has stared a fundraising campaign to support her brother David's journey of healing – with her family making regular trips to stand by his hospital bedside, reports the Irish Mirror.
Her appeal on GoFundMe reads: "We would be ever so grateful for any donations you could make to the family which may help with expenses, David has a long road ahead of him on this recovery path, and we really want to try bring him home. We are so grateful for the hospitality that David is receiving in Lithuania, they are taking great care of him and he is being very well looked after."
She added: "We also appreciate all the help we have already received from family and friends, words cannot thank you all enough."
Thus far, the GoFundMe has amassed more than €54,000, surpassing half of the €100,000 goal. To contribute to the fundraiser, click here.
Join our Dublin Live breaking news service on WhatsApp. Click this link to receive your daily dose of Dublin Live content. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.
For all the latest news from Dublin and surrounding areas visit our homepage.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Independent
a day ago
- Irish Independent
Kilkenny woman diagnosed with cancer for a third time given one year to live – ‘I will keep fighting until my last breath'
A Go Fund Me page has been set up to raise money to fulfil Sandra Collins' one last wish – going to Disneyland with her 19-month-old daughter, Hope A Kilkenny woman who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and told she has a year to live has vowed to keep fighting for her life for the sake of her 19-month-old daughter, Hope. Sandra Collins' tumultuous health journey first began at the age of 20 when she was diagnosed with autoimmune chronic active hepatitis, a liver disease where the body's immune system attacks its liver cells.
Irish Independent
a day ago
- Irish Independent
Meath man's plea for help for his wife who has had life taken from her by chronic Lyme disease symptoms
That's how long Meath native Anne-Marie has been living and dealing with the debilitating effects of chronic Lyme disease, the symptoms of which have robbed her of so much of who she used to be. Now though, they are hoping that a GoFundMe page set up to help her receive promising – albeit expensive – treatment at the Klinik St Georg in Germany. This was described by Daire as 'the only chance to get some of her [Anne-Marie's] life back.' A lover of all things outdoorsy and described by Daire as being in the 'prime of her life' at 33, Anne-Marie would once have thought nothing of heading off up Ireland's highest mountain, Carrauntoohil, if the mood took her. She was trained in social care and was heavily involved in supporting women and children fleeing domestic violence, survivors of the Magdalene laundries, and children with special needs. Follow Independent Meath on Facebook Now though, the 36-year-old struggles to make to it the end of her street – approximately a 200-metre distance – and even if she does, the only reward for her efforts is a week spent languishing in bed, drained by fatigue. Daire added that she is now almost fully dependent on him and others for even the most basic of needs, including showering and eating. It was in February of 2022 that Anne-Marie first began to feel unwell, eventually becoming bedbound and barely able to muster enough strength to eat or even speak. Unable to sleep for more than a few hours, even with the help of medication, her weight dropped to a mere 48kg, just 7.5 stones. What followed was three years of the couple going to see countless specialists including cardiologists, neurologists, immunologists, infectious disease specialists, gastroenterologists, sleep and respiratory experts, and many more. As well as this, Daire said that she became so frail she didn't have the strength to put a jumper on herself or pull the blankets up over herself. She had severe light and sound sensitivity and has had to spend most days and nights in a dark room with noise-cancelling headphones and an eye mask on, in pain, and unable to sleep. Having exhausted all of the treatment options available here in Ireland, the couple have moved back in with their parents in an effort to save money and have been forced to turn to crowdfunding to help raise enough money to get Anne-Marie the potentially life-saving treatment at a prestigious clinic in Germany. Daire, also a Meath native, spoke to the Irish Independent this week about the fundraiser – it currently sits at just over €26k raised of their target amount of €62k – and explained, in heartbreaking fashion, just exactly what this disease has cost them both. "It [Anne-Marie's illness] is our everything. It's something that we manage sometimes from hour to hour, day to day. "The disease takes everything from you. Anne-Marie was a very active person before all this. Down in Killarney, we used to love hiking and we would have lived right next to one of the access points to Carrauntoohil. We'd have been up there any time the sun was shining,' he said. "Now though, the simple act of walking to the top of the street which is 200 metres maybe, this will leave her in bed for the rest of the week,' he continued. Getting sick right at the tail end of COVID, Daire said, was possibly the worst timing as he believes that early Lyme disease symptoms were crucially missed by medical professionals here in Ireland. "I think the first 14 months were probably the hardest. We just didn't have a clue, we were grasping at straws and relying on a system that doesn't know this disease well and it was also at a time, in the country, when the health service was firefighting the last of the bad COVID waves." "To be sick in that climate, we were being told that some of the more ambiguous symptoms of Lyme were probably just COVID and we ended up in this misdiagnosis loop and you start losing time,' he said. With almost half of the money now raised from the fundraiser, Daire is, thanks to talking to others who have been through the treatment in the clinic that Anne-Marie can get back to something resembling her normal life. "There's a high percentage of success there. The clinic has some people who don't respond but we've spoken to quite a few Irish people who have been there. One of them actually was a young lady from Kerry, Karen O'Shea. She went over there to the clinic in a wheelchair and after the treatment, she was able to walk onto her flight. It was a huge night and day turnaround for her." "A lot of the patients from the clinic that we've spoken to are all in the same boat. They might not have the full lease of life that they had before but at least they are no longer constrained/stuck in their bedrooms or prisoners in their own home." The treatment, he says, will be intensive. "They will give the person a triple course of IV antibiotics on the week leading up to a hypothermia session where they'll then put the person under anesthetic before bringing their core temperature up to 42 degrees. This is right on the threshold of what the human body can tolerate. They'll keep it at this temperature for multiple hours with the idea being that the heat is able to access places that the antibiotics can't go to and that the Lyme likes to hide in." In total, the in-patient treatment in the clinic will be five weeks long and there will be six months of follow-up after this when Anne-Marie is at home. All money raised from the treatment will go towards:
Irish Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Banned UK dentist now practicing in Ireland using different name
A man branded 'Britain's rudest dentist' and struck off in the UK due to the risk he posed to patient safety is continuing to practice in Ireland using a different name, the Irish Mirror can exclusively reveal. Dr Rajesh Narendranath was barred from practice in the UK in 2013 after a patient who had cancer and multiple sclerosis claimed that he had deliberately damaged her mouth during a procedure. The patient accused him of making rude comments and being unprofessional, but it was his repeated refusal to apologise or comply with the recommendations of professional bodies that resulted in him being struck off. In June 2011, the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman (PHSO) took the highly unusual step of laying her report on the complaint against Dr Narendranath before the UK Parliament. However, the Irish Mirror can reveal that the 50-year-old dentist is now operating his own practice in Loughrea, Co Galway, and has been working at a dental surgery in Cork, where he featured on its website under the name 'Dr Raj Nair'. He registered the business name of his practice, Lakeshore Dental, in 2013 – the same year that he was struck off the dental register in the UK. Dr Narendranath has also given talks at conferences and featured in the Irish Dental Association's official journal as Dr Raj Nair. Dentists are legally required to practice under the name stated on the Dental Council's Register of Dentists, which lists him as 'Rajesh Narendranath'. After the Dental Council was alerted to Dr Narendranath's use of an alternative name by the Irish Mirror, the regulatory body launched an investigation into the matter, which is currently underway. As part of its inquiries, the Council contacted the dental practice in Cork where Dr Narendranath was working under the name Raj Nair. His photograph and name were removed from the practice's website the following day. The Cork practice did not respond to queries from the Irish Mirror. The Dental Council was previously made aware of the proceedings against Dr Narendranath and his subsequent removal from the register of dentists in Britain. It considered the matter and decided that he was fit to practice dentistry in Ireland. 'I was already practising in Ireland before I was struck off back in 2013 and it was disclosed to the Dental Council in Ireland, as per the requirements,' confirmed Dr Narendranath. 'After investigation, there was no action by the Irish Dental Council, there is [a] long documentary trail for that. I bet you won't print that,' he added. Referring to his use of the name 'Raj Nair', he said 'thousands of patients' that he treats in Ireland 'could barely pronounce my full name', so he decided to shorten it. 'Nair is my clan name and religious patronymic, which I am entitled to use,' he claimed. However, the Dental Council explained that practitioners are obliged to practice under their registered name, although some may shorten their names – but the body's 'main concern' is that they are clearly identifiable. 'I want to confirm that the Dental Council are now investigating this matter with a view to ensuring that relevant provisions of the Dentists Act 1985 are being complied with,' said its registrar, David O'Flynn. Dr Narendranath qualified from the University of Kerala in India in 1997 and moved to the UK in 1999. He subsequently obtained a masters degree in restorative dentistry from Leeds Dental Institute. He worked in a number of locations including Belfast before acquiring a dental practice in Staffordshire in January 2006. The incident that led to a protracted disciplinary process and his ultimate removal from the UK dental register occurred the following year, when he refused to treat a patient with cancer and MS, and told her to leave the premises. When the local Primary Care Trust (PCT) investigated her complaint the following month, Dr Narendranath replied: 'She has complained about me to the PCT!! Who shall I complain to against this patient?' An independent review of the complaint was conducted by a healthcare commission, which recommended that the dentist write to the patient and apologise in relation to five specific issues, as well as providing reassurances on future care. He wrote to the patient, but did not say sorry, and told her that he was still waiting for an apology for her rude and insulting behaviour. He also told the healthcare commission that no apology was due, except to himself. The matter was referred to the General Dental Council, which was 'very concerned' that the patient was yet to receive a letter of apology. In July 2010, she complained to the PHSO, which conducted an investigation. Dr Narendranath maintained in the course of this inquiry that a letter sent by his advisers had constituted an apology, and he stated that he would not pay the woman any compensation. The PHSO upheld the complaint of maladministration and recommended that he should provide the patient with a full acknowledgement and apology, as well as paying her £500 for the 'shock and offence' suffered. The ombudsman said Dr Narendranath's unwillingness to comply with the recommendations of professional bodies raised concerns about his fitness to practice to the extent that it constituted a risk to the health and safety of patients. In June 2011, the ombudsman took the unprecedented step of laying the report before the UK Parliament, allowing Dr Narendranath to be named, noting that it was very unusual for someone providing a health service to ignore her recommendations. This led to widespread coverage of the case in the UK media, which branded Dr Narendranath 'Britain's rudest dentist'. He appealed the decision to remove him from the register to a first-tier tribunal, and said the report being laid before parliament and the attendant publicity had been the 'turning point' at which he realised that he had been at fault. The tribunal endorsed a behavioural assessment of the dentist, which found there were indications that he sometimes made statements that were 'not substantiated by evidence'. It also said he was 'not a reliable historian and witness', and the tribunal was 'unable' to accept that he had fundamentally changed or was 'currently able to change'. It came to the 'clear conclusion' that he was unsuitable to be included on the register of dentists in the UK, and that his attitude posed 'a clear risk to the public interest… [particularly] patient safety and well being'. 'It is necessary to protect patients from exposure to a practitioner who even now lacks true insight into the impact of his behaviour and his failure to take responsibility,' the tribunal said, dismissing his appeal.
