RUNAWAY GIRL DIED FROM HEROIN OVERDOSE

Tragic runaway teenager Kim O'Donovan died of a heroin overdose just four
days before her 16th birthday.

The 15 year old, who was found dead a month after she escaped from a health
board home, had only been using heroin for a short time when she had her
fatal overdose.

A heroin user who was with Kim when she died, told her inquest that he had
bought a gram and a half of heroin on the night of the tragedy.

David Lynch, from Sallynoggin, Dublin, said they went back to his room in
Pillar B&B on Talbot Street.

He said he cooked up the heroin and put 5ml of it into her syringe. She
injected it into her right hand at around 3am on August 24.

Lynch said they both fell asleep and when he woke up at 7am he kissed her
on the lips and they were cold and blue.

He said he could not rouse her and immediately called an ambulance.

Lynch said he did not know if Kim had used heroin before, saying he had
only known her for just four days.

It also emerged at the inquest that a photo of Kim faxed to a garda station
near where she was found dead at the time of her escape was not clear
enough to distinguish any features.

A warrant directing gardai to search for, arrest and return Kim to Newtown
House, her Co Wicklow residential home, was issued after she escaped in
July 2000.