Brave Berkeley survivor set to return to her family home
BERKELEY balcony survivor Clodagh Cogley’s family are making plans to adapt their home for the student as she continues the next phase of her rehabilitation in Dublin.
Posting on the Clodagh Cogley Fund Facebook page with an update, the administrator said the Trinity College student was settling into the next phase of her recovery back i n Ireland, and thanked people for their support.
The Dubliner also managed to fulfil one of her J-1 objectives of visi ting the Golden Gate Bridge before she left.
But the bright student said she thinks of her friends who died in the Berkeley balcony collapse everyday, as well as their families’ unfathomable grief.
The post on the Clodagh Cogley Fund Facebook page read: ‘ Dear Friends and Supporters, a huge thanks to everyone who offered us support and who sent so many kind messages in recent weeks and thanks also to the very many who contributed so generously and imaginatively to the fundraising.
‘We are truly very humbled by your kindness. Plans are well under way now for adapting the house to welcome Clodagh home in the near future and for anticipating some of her longer-term needs.’
The post continued: ‘ Clodagh made good progress in San José thanks to the kindness and expertise of all the staff there.
‘We were even able to travel to the Golden Gate Bridge before we left so Clodagh could fulfil one of her objectives before leaving California. We arrived back in Ireland on the August weekend and Clodagh is now settling into the next phase of her rehabilitation.
‘The staff in Dublin are also wonderful so it is really good to make such a smooth transition.
‘So many people have offered us support and encouragement in so many ways that we will never be able to thank everyone individually but in the last two months we have certainly seen the very best of the human spirit on both sides of the ocean.’
In the touching post, they also expressed their hopes of seeing fellow survivors still in the US, Hannah Waters, Niall Murray and Aoife Beary, return home soon.
They added that the six students who died in the horrific June 16 fall – Eoghan Culligan, Eimear Walsh, Niccolai Schuster, Lorcán Miller, Olivia Burke and Ashley Donohoe – ‘are constantly on our minds, as are the bereaved families... who remain with their unfathomable grief ’.
Clodagh, 21, suffered a broken shoulder, two collapsed lungs, a broken knee, five broken ribs and a broken spinal cord in the Berkeley balcony collapse that claimed the lives of six Irish students earlier this summer.
She has said the chances of her using her legs again are ‘bleak’.
The student vowed to live the ‘happiest and most fulfilling life possible’ as she revealed the extent of her injuries in June.
Since the tragedy, Clodagh’s friends have launched a fundraising page aimed at raising €10,000, and the fund is set for a boost as Quality Dry Cleaners plans to donate half of all their takings on clothes brought to its three Dublin shops for cleaning today.