A FRANTIC driver crashed into a barrier outside the Mater Hospital in Dublin while screaming at passersby to help his friend who lay unconscious with gunshot wounds in the car.

The drama unfolded shortly after 7pm this evening.

A silver Mitsubishi car with Louth registration plates careered off the road before ploughing into a barrier at the Eccles Street entrance of the hospital.

Witnesses say the male driver of the car, dressed in a navy tracksuit, was "in a manic state".

"He kept screaming "he's been shot, he's been f**king shot" at a group of people standing on the street. He went straight into the barrier and nearly crashed into me," a witness told the Irish Independent.

"He had been shot at least twice; once in each leg. It looked like he was drifting in and out of consciousness, but was screaming as they brought him inside."

Both men were in their late twenties, she added.

"A garda coming up the street on a push bike was the first to see it. He came straight over and the place is swarming with police now.

"There aren't any bullet holes in the car. Paramedics and nurses came running with a stretcher and he was taken inside by at least four people. The driver told the paramedics his name was Patrick.

"They were telling the driver not to touch him, just in case it made matters worse."

The condition of the man is unknown.

Online Editors