‘This was about an apology, not about money’ – family settles High Court action with University Hospital Limerick
“It was a beautiful Pandora ring. She said, ‘I love you, Mam. If I feel better in a few days I’ll bring you out for lunch’,” said Melanie. “I often hold that ring, but I can’t wear it. Maybe someday. It means a lot that she got to give it to me.”
Eve gave her mother the early birthday gift on the night of July 20, 2019. She had been discharged from University Hospital Limerick (UHL) just a couple of hours earlier. She had suffered a fall the evening before as she walked in the rain towards her father’s car in Limerick city, accompanied by her boyfriend, Mark.
She slipped, possibly on a fallen ice-cream on the footpath, and fell badly.
Her parents rushed from the car to help and later took their daughter to A&E to be examined. She spent 17 hours on a trolley at the hospital.
She was then briefly admitted to a ward — before being discharged and told to go home and rest. Three hours later, Eve collapsed and died.
The cause of her death was a blood clot in her lung, which led to cardiac arrest and death.
As ambulance crews worked to try save Eve’s life in the family home in the early hours of July 21, she sought her mother’s comfort.
“She was trying to take off her oxygen mask. When she did, she looked at me and said, ‘I’m so sorry, Mam.’ I told her, ‘You’re the best girl. You changed my life. Don’t leave me, Eve’.
“She said again, ‘I’m so sorry, Mam’ .
“Then she had her second cardiac arrest — and I never got to speak to my daughter again.”
The ambulance crew continued to try to resuscitate Eve as the sound of their defibrillator reverberated through the house, frightening some of the couple’s five younger children with its booming “please stand clear” alert.
Eve was then rushed back to UHL. So many emergency services personnel were working on her that her parents had to follow in another ambulance. Three in total were lined up outside the family’s home in the Limerick suburb of Corbally, such was the scale of the emergency.
Eve was immediately taken to a resuscitation room as medics battled to save her life.
“They gave her blood-clot medication and adrenaline, but it was too late,” said her mother. “Her gorgeous blue eyes, they turned black. That was when I knew she was gone.
“When I heard her ribs crack from resuscitation attempts, I said stop. I knew she was gone, that she was never coming home. It was 1.50am on July 21.”
Barry, Melanie and Eve’s father, said their world was sent into a spin. They couldn’t understand how their eldest child was suddenly, inexplicably gone. “We were just stunned. We were brought back into the room to say goodbye. We were told we could bring the other children to the hospital to say goodbye. But we decided it was best to go home and talk to them ourselves. That was one of the hardest things we’ve ever had to do. It was as hard as losing Eve.”
Eve Cleary’s parents Barry Cleary and Melanie Sheehan Cleary. Photo: Don Moloney
Melanie’s body went into a state of shock in the minutes following her daughter’s sudden death.
“I had a physical reaction. I ran to the hospital bathroom and I got sick. I just couldn’t comprehend it.”
Life was a blur for the Clearys over the next few days, as loved ones rallied around to support the family.
“Our daughter just fell and hurt her leg. I mean, you’re not supposed to die from a fall. We were just numb,” said Barry.
“Limerick looked the same, but it was as if it had a layer of cling film over it, because Eve wasn’t in it.”
In the days after her death — including the day of her funeral — phone calls came from UHL. Senior medical staff wanted to discuss her death, but her parents needed space to grieve until after their daughter’s cremation ceremony.
Barry and Melanie sat down with senior staff from the hospital on July 31, 2019 — Melanie’s 40th birthday — to discuss what had happened to their daughter.
This discussion “essentially continued” for the next four-and-a-half years, they said.
It finally came to an end last Tuesday, when Eve’s family settled a High Court action taken over their eldest’s death.
The HSE and the hospital expressed “sincere condolences and deep regret” on the “untimely death” of Eve. The High Court heard that the settlement is without an admission of liability.
The legal action followed an internal investigation into the care Eve received, including why she was discharged, which left her parents unsatisfied and with many unanswered questions. An inquest into her death in 2021 recorded a verdict of medical misadventure.
“It was never about money. I’d rather live in a cardboard box with Eve back,” said her father. “It was about trying to find out what happened. It was about accountability and an apology. It was the only way we were going to get justice.”
During the High Court case, a medical expert on the Cleary side said if Eve had been given an anti-coagulant it would have prevented her from developing the blood clot in her lung which led to her cardiac arrest and death.
The HSE denied all the claims.
University Hospital Limerick
The family’s counsel told the High Court it was their case that if Eve had had a blood clot VTE risk assessment, she would have received an anti-coagulant which would have protected her “from the dreadful outcome”.
In a statement read to the court last week, University Hospital Limerick said that in the “memory of the late Eve Cleary” it was introducing a rolling audit programme on recognising, reducing and managing VTE.
Melanie hopes this action will mean her daughter’s legacy will live on and help save others. But she said she cannot ignore that the HSE stopped short of an actual apology over Eve’s death.
“They spoke of ‘deep regret’. We didn’t actually get the apology we were looking for. But we hope that Eve is proud of us. When we meet her again, I hope she will say to us: ‘Mam and Dad, I know you fought for me.’ I’ve no doubt that she’s up there, looking down on us.”
Eve was the eldest of six children, with four younger sisters and a brother.
“Because she was the oldest, she was almost a second mother to some of them. She was the go-to girl,” said her mother. “I always told my children, ‘Even if you never have a friend, you will always have one another’.
“Eve was very close to them all. She loved making noise, she loved music and dancing. Her family, her friends and her job — that was her life.”
Barry remembers his daughter as “a whirlwind” who “left a trail of glitter behind her”. Eve worked at Schuh at Bedford Row, Limerick, and had risen to managerial level.
“She loved shoes, buying them and selling them. The staff were her second family really. On the day of her funeral, they closed the two Schuh stores in Limerick as a mark of respect. We really appreciated their kindness that day and since,” said her mother.
Eve had been growing in confidence with plans for her future. She wanted to see the world but was also a homebird.
“She had travelled to the Netherlands and Germany and wanted to continue to travel. She rang me from Germany, put a friend on the phone and said, ‘This is my Mam. She’s my best friend, I miss her so much.’ She had only been gone a day or two.”
Eve had a Jack Russell dog, Teddy, that she adored. “Teddy is 11 now and still with us. Teddy was heartbroken when she died. For the two nights after he realised she wasn’t coming home, he was devastated, wandering around the house,” said her mother.
The late Eve Cleary
The circumstances of Eve’s accident and her admission to hospital shortly afterwards still replay in her parents’ minds. Melanie and Barry dropped their daughter and her boyfriend to A&E after examining her leg, before returning home to their younger children.
They stayed in constant contact with Eve and expected she would be released overnight. But morning came with no sign of her, so they returned to hospital.
They found their daughter still on a trolley and awaiting further scans.
Barry couldn’t get over how many trolleys were crammed into the space and describes a scene of “bedlam” in the A&E that Saturday.
Someone had used a nearby sink as a toilet and the smell hung in the air. Eve’s leg swelling also appeared worse — and her mother was worried.
“She was very clingy, and that just wasn’t like her,” said Melanie. “She said: ‘Can you lie down with me a while, Mam? You won’t leave me on my own, will you?’ As I lay down with her I remember rubbing her head. She was sucking her thumb. She was my baby.”
After several more hours, Eve was eventually transferred to a ward. But at around 8.30pm that night, doctors decided to discharge her after examining her scan results.
Her father remembers the last few minutes in the hospital. “She asked the doctor: ‘Are you sure? The back of my leg feels very sore and numb.’
“I remember her mother wiping her tears away as she said this, because her pain was nine out of 10. But she was discharged, with a Tubigrip bandage on her leg. Her calf and foot looked the same, the swelling was so bad.”
Despite the pain, Eve insisted on stopping in the shops on her way home. It was her sister Emma’s 12th birthday, and she wanted to buy the youngster her favourite sweets.
She kept telling her parents that she felt terrible for ruining her sister’s celebrations, while they assured her none of what happened was her fault.
“It’s been hard for Emma to celebrate her birthday ever since, given what happened a few hours later,” said her mother.
Eve stayed up for a little while with her family when she got home, before going upstairs to bed with the help of her boyfriend. Her parents were downstairs watching a film when Mark called out to them.
“Just the way Mark screamed my name, I knew something was seriously wrong,” said Melanie. “She was going grey, her lips were blue. Barry was on the phone to the ambulance.”
Her father tried to resuscitate Eve and keep her alert as the ambulance crew rushed to their home.
The Clearys are “forever grateful” to the emergency services who came to their home that night. They also praise their legal team who are now “like family” after taking on their case against the HSE.
During the three-week legal action, Barry and Melanie felt they were on trial, particularly during cross-examination. The four-hour daily commute from Limerick to Dublin also took its toll and both said they couldn’t have continued for another week. But they now feel vindicated by the settlement.
“Eve was cremated but we’ve not yet buried her ashes. We’ve bought a plot. We will finally be able to lay her to rest now,” her mother said.
“After four-and-a-half years, this is over. We want to remember the 21 wonderful years we had with Eve, not her death. We want to celebrate her life.
“I think that she knows that we fought for her. In a way, Eve has now been set free.”
A spokesman for the HSE confirmed that CEO Bernard Gloster will meet with Eve’s family once the independent review into her death concludes.
“The CEO is aware of the family’s very strong views about how they feel the HSE engaged with them at a number of levels. When the independent review concludes, he intends to meet with them to address all these issues,” the spokesman said, adding: “In conclusion, as he did when he met the family, the CEO wants to again offer his and the HSE’s deepest condolence to the family during what continues to be a very difficult time for them.”
