Ill man found dead in river after leaving hospital

A SERIOUSLY-ill man who walked out of a hospital with a chest tube sticking out of his abdomen was found dead in a river a few hours later, an inquest heard yesterday.

Patrick McSweeney, 52, from 63, Templeacre Avenue, Gurranabraher in Cork, was found floating in the river Lee in the early hours of June 15 last just a few hundred yards from the Mercy University Hospital (MUH) where he had been an in-patient.

He presented at MUH on June 4 after a fall and was being treated for fractured ribs, bleeding in the chest cavity, and a collapsed lung.

A chest drain device had been inserted into his chest cavity and it was attached to a jar for collecting fluid. It was due to be removed on June 15.

But Mr McSweeney left his bed in St Finbarr’s ward on the second floor of MUH, fully clothed, sometime after 6pm on June 14.

Clinical nurse manager, Carmel Walsh, said an alarm was triggered on a unsupervised fire exit door at around the same time. This led staff to believe that Mr McSweeney had made his way down a back stairs and left the hospital through that exit. There was no CCTV coverage at that exit.

He was noticed and reported missing almost immediately and his family and gardaí were alerted.

But despite the fact that medical and security staff searched the hospital and surrounds, Mr McSweeney could not be found.

His body was discovered by two hospital porters in the north channel of the river Lee, close to the Old Distillery, just a few hundred yards from MUH’s main entrance, at 5.05am the following morning.

A post mortem showed he died from drowning.

The inquest heard that Mr McSweeney had been receiving treatment for an enduring mental illness in the months before his death, was on three different types of anti-psychotic medicines and sleeping tablets, and had a history of self-harm.

He was under the care of Health Service Executive (HSE) psychiatrist for the north Lee area, Dr John Dennehy, who is based at MUH. But when Mr McSweeney presented at the hospital’s A&E on June 4, doctors there felt there was no need for a psychiatric consultation.

Dr Dennehy told the inquest that the Mercy is not slow to request such an input. “But it didn’t happen in this case,” he said.

Dr Dennehy said Mr McSweeney appeared stable, apart from a period in May 2006 when he was experiencing severe grief following the death of his brother with whom he lived.

And he had never expressed a desire to take his own life, he said.

Staff nurse Gwen Alberto was the last member of MUH’s medical staff to see Mr McSweeney alive.She told the inquest that at 6pm on the night he went missing, he appeared well, was orientated with time and space, and was co-operative.

Garda Don Healy told the inquest that there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the discovery of Mr McSweeney’s body.

Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane said the facts of the case did not meet the legal test to allow her record a verdict of death by suicide.

“There is no evidence of deliberate entry to the river. Neither is there any expression of intent. But the nature of the death suggests he entered the river of his own volition,” she said.

She recorded an open verdict.