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‘A year from hell’ for family of Limerick teen Savannah Calvert

Jerome O'Connell, 16 Aug

“A YEAR from hell” is how the sister of Savannah Calvert has described

the time since the 14-year-old lost her life in a road traffic

collision in Limerick city.

On what is the first anniversary of the death of the teenager, her

sister, Diane Calvert, spoke to the Leader at the grave of Savannah who

was “the baby of the house”.

Savannah, from Garryowen, died in a fatal road traffic collision in the

Bank Place area of Limerick city.

The incident, which occurred late at night on August 16, 2023, involved

a single car and a pedestrian, Savannah.

Diane Calvert is the eldest of 16 children, of which Savannah was the

youngest.

“It's like our hearts are completely gone,” Ms Calvert said. “That's

the way it feels to us. We just get up, we think about Savannah every

day, we talk about her every day. We just can't believe that she's gone

- she had so much to live for.”

This was unfortunately not the first hardship the family suffered in

recent years, with the loss of their sisters Sophie and Katie in 2011

and 2014, respectively, and their mother, Jacqueline, only eight months

prior to Savannah’s death.

READ MORE: Limerick woman bids to be NUI’s first female chancellor in

more than 100 years

Sitting at the resting place of her mother and sisters, Ms Calvert

spoke about the “year from hell” that she and her family have had since

the loss of Savannah.

Having lost two sisters to Cystic Fibrosis, Ms Calvert expressed the

hope that they had maintained for Savannah, who also had the illness,

to live “a full, healthy life” with a new course of treatment she had

just started.

“She was doing so well,” Ms Calvert remarked, “with this new tablet,

this promising tablet. My other two sisters didn't get that chance.”

Ms Calvert has nothing but gratitude for all of the medical staff who

treated Savannah, both during her Cystic Fibrosis treatment and after

the collision.

She also praised the gardaí who happened to come across the scene “on

their lunch break” and immediately went to help: “They worked so hard

to keep on pumping Savannah and resuscitating her, and I'll be forever

thankful for what they did.

“But I knew my sister was dead at the scene,” Ms Calvert continued,

“when we arrived down… my sister was just, she was gone.”

She described Savannah as a tomboy who was just beginning to get

interested in “girly girl things”.

“She was a big Liverpool fan,” Ms Calvert smiled, which is clear from

the engraving of the club’s crest at the grave.

“Every jersey that came out every year since she was born, my mother

bought them for her. She was my mother's pet.

“She was our life really, you know? She had so much to live for, and

Savannah didn't want to die. Savannah would want to have been here. And

I know Savannah would want us to fight for justice for her,” she

continued.

A year after the incident occurred, Ms Calvert says that she and her

family long to be further down the line with the investigation.

“Our lives are on hold,” she asserted.

As the matter is a live investigation, gardai declined to comment.