A boozed-up Irish driver has been found guilty of killing an Australian student in a road crash.
Patrick Paul Nealon was convicted of dangerous driving causing death after he struck 22-year-old Nicole Lewanski while he was heavily intoxicated.
Nealon, 38, was found guilty of aggravated dangerous driving occasioning death at the culmination of a three week trial at Downing Centre District Court in Sydney, Australia.
He is due to be sentenced on December 6.
Student and aspiring librarian Lewanski was hit by Nealon’s car while standing on a pedestrian island in a Sydney suburb in December 2016.
The Irishman was four times over the legal limit of alcohol at the time of the incident which occurred mid-afternoon.
Eye witness Niloy Saha said he saw Nealon’s car attempt to make a sudden right turn across three lanes of traffic, fishtail, and mount a pedestrian island before knocking Lewanski into the air.
Saha rushed to the gravely injured woman and cradled her as another bystander attempted CPR.
He told the court: “I was just holding her, she took her last breath in my arms. You just know, when someone’s body weight shifts. Sitting in my arms, I felt her last breath.”
Saha testified that he saw Nealon exit his car after the incident and that he appeared to have had “more than a few drinks.”
Paul Harrison, who attempted CPR on Lewanski, said Nealon was “very intoxicated and very incoherent.”
Nealon fled the scene but was later found in an incoherent state among the trees in a supermarket parking lot.
Though he reportedly refused to do a roadside breathalyzer test, one ambulance driver told the court that Nealon said he had had “heaps” to drink “maybe 15 schooners of beer.”
Nealon was brought to a nearby hospital where doctors determined he had a .199 blood-alcohol content, nearly four times the legal limit.
He did not apply for bail, but denied the charges.
After Lewanski’s death, her brother posted on social media saying: “Nicole’s beautiful soul has shed this worldly vessel.
“Alcohol is a cancer upon humanity and we have absolutely no need for it.”
