A MOTHER'S WORST NIGHTMARE COME TRUE

Gemma O'Doherty talks to the grieving mother of one of the victims,
who says she never imagined his death would be so cruel

Christine Ryan always knew that heroin would take her son away from
her. But, even in her worst nightmares, she never imagined his death
would be so cruel.

Mark, her eldest boy and best friend, had always bounced back even
though his addiction was slowly killing him, eating its way through
every vein in his body. A football mad 24-year-old, he was six foot
three, robust and strong, the last person you would think had
succumbed to heroin. The only physical reminders that are left of him
today are photos on the mantelpiece that show him looking healthy and
well.

Four weeks ago, Mark took his daughter Nicole on a day trip to Bray to
celebrate her fifth birthday. Twenty days later, he was laid to rest
in Mount Jerome Cemetery. What happened in between is still a mystery
to his heartbroken family.

Christine understood her son's drug habit inside out. She knew all the
signs and symptoms. The cold sweats he broke into during his desperate
cravings. The way his limbs shook when he had run out of `gear'. The
lesions that covered his body when his resistance was low. But a
fortnight before his death, the day after his last shot of heroin, he
had come to her with a condition she had never seen before. A burning
abscess had erupted on his left buttock stretching halfway down his
thigh and oozing yellow pus from every pore. It terrified her. Within
days, the poison inside had spread to other parts of his body and
several more infections had developed on his skin.

``I couldn't believe the sight of it. It was so frightening to look
at. I had seen a lot of things with Mark but this was like something
from a horror movie. I bathed it and bathed it but it just got worse
and worse. He was fading away right before my eyes.''

By this stage, Mark's temperature had soared. Despite his raging
thirst, even the merest sip of water was instantly rejected by his
system. He slumped in sweat-soaked sheets in the bed where he had
spent so many wasted hours strung out on heroin, pleading with his
mother to take the pain away. But Christine knew there was nothing
more she could do.

``We got him to hospital but once they saw he was a drug user, there
didn't seem to be any urgency.

``We were left waiting 12 hours in casualty before he was seen to.
There didn't seem to be any pity for him at all. Eventually, they took
him in. They told me he'd be out in four days. They were right. He
left four days later, but in a coffin.''

Mark's heart had finally given up during an operation to remove an
abscess. Today, all his mother knows is that he died from a severe
unidentified illness.

For six years, Mark Ryan struggled with an addiction that ravaged his
body, destroyed his mind and tore his family apart. How did he get
started on drugs? How does anyone in his situation? He grew up in a
socially deprived part of Dublin's inner city, got disillusioned with
life, and found comfort in a needle that gave him an escape.

``Either way, the drugs got him in the end,'' says Christine. ``The
day he started using them was the day he stopped growing up. He tried
to stop. I pleaded with the clinics to take him on but the help that
he needed just wasn't there.''

Today, Christine and her three other children have been left to pick
up the pieces on their own. She misses Mark desperately. She still
half expects him to walk through the door.

``Nobody has come to see me. No one from the hospital to tell me what
happened to Mark. People might not understand how you can love a
junkie, but he was my son. I want to know the truth about how he died.
I have a right to. I just wonder if I ever will.''