Jury urges CPR refresher courses for gardaí

Gardaí should get regular refresher courses in CPR, a jury recommended after an inquest yesterday into the death of a man who collapsed in a Garda station cell.

Cork City Coroner’s Court heard that James Walsh, 44, who lived at Mill Rd, Midleton, Co Cork, got no CPR for seven minutes after his collapse in a cell in the town’s Garda station because of the six gardaí who dealt with him that morning, only one was proficient in the technique.

One garda told coroner Dr Myra Cullinane he had received basic CPR training in 1990 but had received no refresher training since.

The jury, who returned a verdict of misadventure, also called for the installation of defibrillators in all stations.

Mr Walsh was pronounced dead at Cork University Hospital at 8.45am on November 26, 2012 a few hours after he was found in a collapsed and unresponsive state in the cell.

The inquest was told he had visited two pubs in the town the previous day. He had one pint in the Teach Beag between 4.30pm and 8.30pm before leaving for McCarthy’s Pub where he had two pints. He left there at 12.35am to walk to his apartment.

He was captured on CCTV at 12.59am walking towards SuperValu, and moments later on another CCTV camera collapsing on a laneway near the supermarket and behind the Mill Wheel pub. He was found lying there at 6am by two men on their way to work and gardaí were called.

Mr Walsh couldn’t stand or walk and couldn’t give them his name. Gardaí thought he was intoxicated.

One of the supermarket workers believed he was from Carrigtwohill and gardaí decided to drive him home. But they learned that he was no longer living there and they decided to arrest him, for his own safety, and take him to Midleton Garda station while they established his identity and address.

They contacted SouthDoc for advice, placed him in a cell at 6.49am, removed his wet clothes, covered him in blankets, and turned on the heating in the cell.

He was checked regularly but, at 7.23am, was found collapsed, placed in the recovery position and medical attention was sought. It was seven minutes before a paramedic arrived and CPR began. An ambulance came about 10 minutes later.

Advanced life saving techniques were performed as Mr Walsh was rushed to hospital but he was pronounced dead a short time later.

Assistant state pathologist, Dr Margot Bolster, said he died from a combination of severe alcohol-related liver and heart disease, complicated by hypothermia in association with aspirational pneumonia on a background of an alcohol-related brain disease. She said his confused hypothermic state could easily have been mistaken for intoxication.

Mr Walsh’s family welcomed the jury’s recommendations.