‘Life saver’ Megan (18) died tragically in freak accident
By Hayden Moore
Having a beautiful heart was how Megan ‘Fuzzy’ O’Connor was remembered by friends and family at the funeral Mass of the Jobstown teenager after she saved a woman’s life weeks before her tragic death.
Two weeks before Megan died on December 23, she helped save an elderly woman’s life after noticing how ill she looked aboard the Luas and ultimately performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while waiting on an ambulance.
Megan O'Connor
“The heart of Megan’s life was highlighted in the most powerful and most beautiful way just a couple weeks before she died when she quite literally saved a woman’s life by doing artificial respiration on her while waiting for an ambulance on the Luas,” said chief celebrant, Fr Pat McKinley.
“Megan was in her short life, quite literally a life saver, and I think that the fact that she had saved someone’s life just in these last few weeks, I suppose makes the reality of the freak manner of her death all the more difficult to take in.”
Megan died tragically just two days before Christmas in what has been described as a freak accident, Gardai responded to the scene on Sundrive Road in Crumlin where it is understood that she had collapsed, landing on a glass bottle she was carrying which ultimately severed an artery in her groin.
Dublin Fire Brigade treated Megan at the scene, she was then brought to St James Street Hospital where she was later pronounced dead.
Mourners gathered in the hundreds at the funeral Mass of 18-year-old Megan in the Church of St Thomas the Apostle in Jobstown to celebrate the “bright blaze of life and laughter and love” that she was.
“She loved a laugh with her friends, she loved her family, she loved sport – she especially loved football and boxing, where in her time she showed great promise,” continued Fr McKinley.
Once a member of Westside Boxing Club under the coaching of Frank and James Stacey, she boxed in the Jobstown club for a number of years when she was younger, and her boxing gloves where among the gifts presented to the altar during the Mass.
Also, among the gifts brought up to the altar by her loved ones was a hover football, a signed Manchester United training top and a plethora of other sport paraphernalia.
“Megan, like every one of us, in her short life had her share of struggles, she had her ups and downs, she had her troubles,” continued Fr McKinley before joking about how she would give her family and teachers “free coaching at sprinting as she ducked and dived around school and home over the years.”
“I’m sure any of you who knew Megan well would remember her big mop of fuzzy hair and in fact her nickname ‘Fuzzy’, but not long ago Fuzzy cut her hair short to symbolise a new phase in her life, a new beginning in her life.
Sonya, Megan’s aunt, shared some fond and funny anecdotes of her niece with some closing thoughts.
She said: “Just a few weeks ago she said to her mam: ‘Mam, why don’t you go out? Ah sure you don’t have any friends’, and [her mother, Tina’s] reply was ‘I have more friends than you love’.
“Megan then responded ‘sure that’s not very much ma. I could go into town and go all over Tallaght and I’m telling you I’d have friends everywhere’. Which I believe because there are so many friends who loved her.
“She’s just a lovely girl, I’m not only saying that because she was my niece, but she is. She was my second daughter.”
Sonya then offered a stern warning to ensure no other similar accidents would happen again saying: “just don’t carry a glass bottle in your waistband. Or even just don’t carry glass bottles at all because you just don’t know what is going to happen.”
Survived by her mother Tina and her little brother Brandon, the funeral Mass was followed by Megan’s burial in Bohernabreena Cemetery.
