A broken-hearted family are desperate to trace a phone belonging to their loving father who collapsed whilst in Cork city centre on Tuesday and died in hospital as it contains irreplaceable family photographs.
The family of Kieran O'Donovan from Glamire, Co Cork are keen to find the iPhone as it stores priceless family shots from over the years.
Mr O'Donovan's daughter, Karen, made an emotional appeal for help via The Opinion Line on Cork’s 96FM.
She said that her father, who suffered from a heart complaint, parked his car on Wellington Road in Cork city around 4pm on Tuesday.
Mr O'Donovan went down a hill by York Street in order to get to MacCurtain Street. When he got to the bottom of the hill he collapsed.
A passerby went to his assistance and paramedics were at the scene within minutes.
They administered emergency medical attention. Mr O’Donovan was rushed by ambulance to Cork University Hospital (CUH).
However, tragically he was pronounced dead shortly after he arrived at the hospital.
All of his possessions were accounted for including his car keys.
However, Karen said that his iPhone, which was in a navy case, was missing.
It is understood Mr O'Donovan had the phone with him at the junction of York Street and MacCurtain Street.
Family members and emergency services carried out a trawl of the area involved but no trace of the phone was found.
Karen is hoping that her appeal will result in the phone being returned to the grieving family.
"It is much more than a phone - that is all we care about, just finding it. We just want his phone back as it has everything, all the pictures of his grandchildren everything.
It would have been somewhere between the bottom of York Street up as far as the post office.
Gardai say he got into difficulties at the bottom of York Street and that he tried to go in to an apartment block that had an open door to get help and that’s probably where he lost the phone.”
Karen has urged anyone with information on its whereabouts to text Cork’s 96FM on 083 – 3969696.
