Sick woman died with neck trapped in bed rail

A CRITICALLY ill woman died after her head and neck became trapped under a hospital bed safety rail, an inquest has heard.

Assistant state pathologist, Dr Margaret Bolster, said the ‘bed rail entrapment’ incident had undoubtedly contributed to the death of Christine Bradley, aged 59, from St Joseph’s Terrace in Greenmount, Cork, in Cork University Hospital (CUH) on May 11, 2006.

Ms Bradley was seriously ill, was expected to die within hours and had a ‘do not resuscitate’ note in her medical files.

Dr Bolster told the inquest, however, that she died at the time she did because she trapped her head and neck between the lower bar of the bed rail and the mattress.

Cork Coroner’s Court also heard that Ms Bradley — who had diabetes and regularly complained of thirst — had ingested between 150 and 200 millilitres of an iodine-based antiseptic which had been left in a 500ml bottle on her bed-side locker, just over an hour before the incident.

However, Dr Bolster said this did not contribute to her death.

The inquest heard how Ms Bradley had been admitted to CUH almost six months before her death.

She had a complex medical history and was seriously ill. She had been vomiting blood on the day of her death.

She was in room nine of ward one B, a general medical ward, when nurses discovered she had ingested the antiseptic at about 8.30pm.

Dr Pat Barry, a specialist registrar in geriatric medicine, contacted the poison centre at Beaumont Hospital for advice.

They advised the substance was only toxic in large doses and Dr Barry ordered that Ms Bradley be kept under special observation.

However, nursing staff discovered her at about 9.45pm lying on her back, across the top of the bed, with her head sticking through one of the side rails designed to keep patients from falling out.

Her neck was jammed between the lower bar and a special air mattress.

Nurses battled to release the rail but couldn’t. Dr Barry was paged and had to release brackets from under the bed to remove the rail.

Ms Bradley showed no signs of life and she was pronounced dead a short time later. Engineering expert, Matt O’Mahony, examined the safety rail afterwards and found a slight distortion in one of the bars.

He could not say when this occurred but said it could have been caused by nurses trying to remove the rail from the bed.

Dr Bolster said it was a very difficult and complex case to examine and revealed how she found a circular bruise on the front of Ms Bradley’s neck, consistent with pressure from one of the safety rail’s bars.

“Without question, there was pressure. But the compression didn’t last that long. There is no physical evidence of asphyxia,” she added.

Dr Bolster said Ms Bradley was critically ill but suggested that her airway had been compromised and this had tipped the balance towards death.

She said death was caused by end-stage liver disease, gastro-intestinal bleeding and bed rail entrapment.

Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane recorded a verdict of death due to misadventure.