An 85-year old retired north Clare farmer choked to death while having his breakfast at a nursing home in Liscannor in March of this year, an inquest has heard.
At the Clare Coroner’s Court in Kilrush, County Coroner, Isobel O’Dea returned a narrative verdict in line with medical evidence that PJ O’Leary died from asphyxiation following aspiration at the St Dominic Savio nursing home in Liscannor on the morning of March 6th this year.
Aspiration occurs when food is breathed into the lungs and can occur during a choking episode.
Mr O’Leary was a resident in the nursing home for around two years and on the morning of March 6th Mr O’Leary’s breakfast consisted of tea and toast, orange juice and cereal.
Ms O’Dea said that it would not be appropriate to give a verdict of accidental death or or death by misadventure in the case.
Ms O’Dea said that Mr O’Leary of Ballymacraven West, Ennistymon was not on a specialised diet and she said that she was very taken with the ‘very fair” evidence by staff showing their efforts to assist Mr O’Leary.
At the inquest, solicitor for the O’Leary family, Louise Merrigan questioned staff on the length of time it took to call an ambulance.
Ms Merrigan told the hearing that the paramedic in the case confirmed that the ambulance service received a call at 9.40am and she said that this was around 20 minutes after staff first noticed that Mr O’Leary was in difficulty.
Ms Merrigan told the inquest: “Minutes matter.”
Clinical Nurse Manager, Faith Galvin told the hearing at around 9.20am she went to the dining room after assistance was called.
On arrival, Nurse Galvin saw that Mr O’Leary’s face was “dead purple”.
Nurse Galvin said that she slapped Mr O’Leary’s back and did chests thrusts to clear his airway.
She believed that Mr O’Leary was either choking or undergoing a cardiac arrest. The Heimlich manoeuvre and chest compressions were also performed on Mr O’Leary.
Nurse Galvin said that she also carried out CPR on Mr O’Leary as he soon had no pulse and worked on him for a period of time.
She said that she directed that an ambulance be called for.
Under cross-examination from Ms Merrigan on the length of time it took to call am ambulance, Nurse Galvin said that she couldn’t remember the exact time she entered the dining room saying it could have been 9.30am or 9.35am.
Solicitor for the nursing home, Conor Glendon that Nurse Galvin wouldn’t have have time accuracy in terms of something happening so fast in an emergency situation.
He said: “It would be impossible for her to be completely accurate in relation to timelines.”
Ms Merrigan said that Mr O’Leary’s chair on which he was sitting was dragged out of the dining room to an adjoining room to carry out further efforts to revive him
Nurse Galvin said that Mr O’Leary was moved for the safety of residents as the dining room is very small and it would have been very difficult to carry out CPR in the small dining room.
Paramedics arrived at the nursing home at 9.49am and performed advanced life saving protocols for 23 minutes before Mr O’Leary was pronounced dead at 10.15am.
In her concluding comments, Ms O’Dea said that she has never faced with what staff at the nursing home had to deal with that morning. Ms O’Dea said that it would be difficult to have exact timelines in such a situation.
