Inquest hears how man died after stairs fall on eve of Australian holiday
Nicholas Roche (79) was due to fly to Australia the following day.
The retired Aer Lingus aircraft engineer was walking downstairs when he lost his footing on the stair turn on March 10 2015.
His wife Antoinette Roche heard him fall at around 11am and ran to his aid. The pair had booked flights to visit family in Australia and were getting ready to leave.
“I heard Nicholas cry out from the top of the stairs. I saw him fall backwards down the stairs. He said he lost his footing on the turn of the stairs,” she said.
Mr Roche was ‘conscious and alert’ following the fall and Mrs Roche said they received a number of visitors that day, calling to their family home in Santry, Dublin 9, to wish them well on their trip.
At around 6pm Mr Roche was speaking on the phone and his wife noticed something was not right.
“He didn’t sound right, his speech was slurred,” she said. Unable to help him out of his chair, she called an ambulance and travelled with him to the Mater Hospital.
Doctors were unable to save Mr Roche, who had been taking the prescribed blood thinning medication Warfarin since 2004. Doctors found a very large hemorrhage that was not possible to treat with surgery, Deputy Dublin Coroner Dr Crona Gallagher said.
The cause of death was subdural hematoma, or bleed on the brain, due to a fall, an inquest into his death at Dublin Coroner’s Court heard.
Returning a narrative verdict, the coroner said it was not possible to say whether the Warfarin medication had a part to play in his death, it may have been a risk factor in the severity of the onset of the brain hemorrhage, but this could not be confirmed, the coroner said.
