GSOC commissioner in critical condition after fall in northern Spain

A FORMER journalist and current Head of Communications and Research for the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, the independent statutory body in Ireland charged with overseeing the national police force, has been placed into a medically induced coma in a Galician hospital.

Kieran Fitzgerald, a native of Glin, Co. Limerick, reportedly fell off a wall onto rocks after feeling faint, and has suffered serious spinal injuries, with complications arising following surgery in La Coruña.

Fitzgerald had sailed to Galicia from Dublin in order to meet up with his wife Evelyn, with the couple having planned to walk part of the famous Camino de Santiago.

He is a former producer, award-winning journalist, and researcher, and current member of the executive committee of the British & Irish Ombudsman Association.

Meanwhile, further tragedy has struck in the Canary Islands, with a 21-year-old woman from Cork who was on holiday with friends losing her life after plummeting from a balcony in a Tenerife hotel.