Dead man’s family criticises hospital

THE family of a 47-year-old man who was killed by a train minutes after he received treatment for a head injury has criticised the hospital over the manner in which he was discharged.

Tess Koyce, sister of John Condon said she had reservations about the hospital's policy on releasing patients.

"I don't believe John should have been discharged at 4am. I've never heard anything like it. He shouldn't have been discharged at that time," Ms Koyce said.

She made her views known after an inquest yesterday into the death of the unemployed painter from Mitchelstown, Co Cork.

Coroner Michael Kennedy heard that Mr Condon fell and banged his head on a street in the town at 1.10am on October 30 last. Evidence was

given by a local bar manager that he had earlier consumed seven pints in her pub.

Gardaí were quickly on the scene and called local doctor Frank O'Connor to Mr Condon's aid. He was taken to Dr O'Connor's surgery where it was decided he should go to the accident and emergency department at Mallow General Hospital. Mr Condon didn't want to go but was persuaded that it was in his best interests.

"He was saying he was all right, but he was drunk and I didn't consider him capable of deciding. He wasn't capable of walking," Dr O'Connor said.

Gardaí took Mr Condon half way to Mallow where they transferred him to an ambulance. Ambulance personnel said Mr Condon seemed fine. He was able to climb into the ambulance

unaided and also walked unaided into the A&E department.

Mr Condon alleged that his head

injury was due to an assault, which gardaí later disproved, and he gave an incorrect address to hospital staff.

He was examined first by a junior doctor and then by Dr Shane Guerin, the surgical senior house officer on duty.

Dr Guerin said he carried out numerous tests, including a full neurological assessment, on Mr Condon which showed no abnormalities. He then stapled the wound on his head.

"In my opinion there was no way

he was intoxicated enough to warrant admission or to make me worry about him going home," Dr Guerin said.

Staff nurse Siobhan Buckley said Mr Condon was fully conscious and twice asked him if he wanted her to contact a relative or get him a taxi to take him home.

Hospital night superintendent Mary Murphy said Mr Condon was fully orientated when he was discharged shortly before 4am. She also asked him if she could contact a relative or a taxi. "John was adamant himself he didn't want anyone contacted," Ms Murphy said, adding Mr Condon told her he would walk back to Mitchelstown a distance of 21 miles.

He was accompanied to the hospital entrance by a security guard and Ms Murphy rang Mallow gardaí to tell them Mr Condon intended walking home.

Minutes later, just a few hundred yards from the hospital, train driver Andrew Cosgrave saw him lying on the railway tracks. He applied the breaks and sounded the horn but was unable to stop the train running over Mr Cosgrave and severing his lower left leg.

Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster said Mr Condon died from injuries in the rail accident and she could find no

evidence of damage to his brain resulting from his fall earlier in Mitchelstown. The jury returned a verdict of misadventure and the Southern Health Board expressed its sympathy to Mr Condon's family on his tragic death.