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.