Man died from drugs cocktail

A man trying to beat his addictions died from a cocktail of drugs after injecting heroin in the toilets of a fast-food restaurant in Cork City, an inquest heard yesterday.

Paul Dorney, aged 39, originally from Bishopstown but living in St Vincent’s Hostel, was found unresponsive in a toilet cubicle upstairs in the Winthrop St branch of McDonald’s just after 10.30pm on November 29 last by staff doing a security walk-round.

McDonald’s manager Lukasz Czaicki told the city coroner’s court he raised the alarm immediately. Gardaí were on the scene within minutes and performed CPR, before firefighters took over.

Paramedics arrived shortly afterwards and administered advanced life support for almost 20 minutes. But advanced paramedic Danny Howard said Mr Dorney’s heart flatlined the entire time, leading him to believe he had been dead for several minutes before being found.

Mr Dorney, who was captured on CCTV entering the restaurant at 9.51pm, was pronounced dead at the scene, just before 11pm.

Gardaí found a bloody tissue in his hand, and a syringe, a medi-swab, and a brown substance were later found in his pockets. A postmortem revealed traces of heroin, carbanazepine, alcohol, and two other drugs in his system.

Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster said the cause of death was polydrug use with alcohol, and that while none of the drugs individually were in the overdose range, the combination was fatal.

Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.