‘No signs of life’ from Ashling Murphy when paramedics arrived, court told

There were no signs of life from Ashling Murphy when two paramedics arrived at the scene, a court heard on Friday.

Two paramedics and two gardai formed a chain to carry her up an embankment to attempt a resuscitation but said there were no signs of movement or a heartbeat.

Ms Murphy, 23, was killed while out exercising along a canal path in Tullamore, Co Offaly, at around 3.30pm on January 12 2022.

Jozef Puska, 33, of Lynally Grove in Mucklagh, Tullamore, has pleaded not guilty to her murder.

On the fourth day of the trial at the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin, advanced paramedic Paul McCabe described how he and his colleague Ciaran Daly arrived at the scene where Ms Murphy was killed.

He said they arrived around eight minutes after receiving an emergency call at 3.49pm.

He said two gardai, Garda Tom Dunne and Garda Shane Hunter who gave evidence on Thursday, were performing CPR on a person down a steep embankment off the canal walkway in Tullamore.

“I saw a patient, didn’t know whether it was male or female, she was lying on her back,” he told the court.

He said that because of the area Ms Murphy was in, they needed to remove her from the hedgerow to the tarmac path to attempt a resuscitation.

“We had to create a chain to try and drag her up the bank,” he said, adding that her jacket and a running shoe came off in this process.

He told the court that Ms Murphy’s hair was matted over her face from either blood loss, body fluid or condensation from the undergrowth.

He said there was a substantial wound or a number of wounds in one area of her neck, and that her eyes were “wide open”.

When he put the pads of the defibrillator on her, he told the court there were “no signs of life”.

“Her skin was pale, cold and there was no effort to make movement,” he told the court.

“As the clinical lead, it was my decision to cease resuscitation,” he said.

Mr Daly told the court that he and Mr McCabe left Tullamore hospital at 3.49pm.

He said that when they arrived he decided the patient needed to be moved to “solid ground” to perform a resuscitation.

He said a human chain was formed between himself, Mr McCabe and the two garda members.

He said that he then retrieved a life pack, a device that has a defibrillator and a diagnostic test on it.

He told the court Ms Murphy’s eyes and mouth were open, that her eyes were fixed and dilated and that there was no heart rate.

He said she was “totally unresponsive to anything”.

They both stayed at the scene until gardai told them to leave, he confirmed to the court.