Dead man's family hit out at Spanish authorities

Friends of an Irish man who died over a year after receiving serious head injuries while holidaying in Alicante tonight blasted Spanish authorities for failing to help them locate him for over 24 hours.

The family of John Coffey, 60, from Gosworth Park, Dalkey, Co Dublin was not immediately notified that he was in a coma after a fall as his friends could not find which hospital he was in.

David Clarke told the Dublin City Coroner’s Court that he alerted police after Mr Coffey fell down a flight of stairs in the holiday home at around 6am on September 29, 2003. He said the Spanish officers then called an ambulance to bring the 60-year-old to hospital.

However, Mr Coffey’s wife, Jill, told the inquest there was a 24-hour time gap between when he was found unconscious and when his family were alerted back in Ireland.

"We weren’t informed of the accident until 6pm on the Tuesday afternoon,” Mrs Coffey, who was accompanied by some of her six children, said.

Mr Clarke, whose mother owned the holiday home, said they tried to follow the ambulance to hospital but they lost it along the way.

He told the court that the group of four men then frantically searched hospitals for a day and a half for him but the Spanish Authorities would not help them.

“Once you don’t speak their language no one wants to know,” he told the inquest. “The communication was crazy over there we just couldn’t find him.”

He said that he immediately notified the solicitor’s family once they finally traced him in an Alicante hospital through a helpful barman who spoke fluent Spanish. Mr Coffey’s friends also hired an interpreter to help them.

The inquest heard that Mr Coffey had travelled to the holiday home in Spain with his four friends on September 27, 2003.

The group went out to a pub to watch the All Ireland Football Final. Paul O’Connell told the court that Mr Coffey had taken a few glasses of wine as they watched the match but he was not drunk.

Mr O’Connell said that in the early hours of September 29, 2003 he heard a noise and found Mr Coffey unconscious at the end of the stairs.

His wife told the court that he was finally brought back to Ireland on October 17, 2003 by air ambulance after he regained consciousness and was taken to Beaumont Hospital. The inquest heard that Mr Coffey remained in the Dublin hospital until his death over 12 months after the accident on October 29, 2004.

The inquest heard that Mr Coffey, who suffered from the rheumatoid arthritis in his neck and Parkinson’s disease, was in poor health and on a large amount of medication when he travelled on holidays.

Mrs Coffey told the court that her husband was not supposed to consume alcohol due to his condition. “Two or three glasses of wine would have had him quite intoxicated,” she said.

The court heard that he most likely lost his balance or slipped on the tiled stairs as he went to find the bathroom at around 6am that morning.

The inquest heard that Mr Coffey was not able to communicate with people after the accident and remained bedridden.

The pathologist, Dr Jack Philips from Beaumont Hospital, said that Mr Coffey had died from respiratory failure due to the serious brain injuries and neck injuries he received in the fall.

The inquest heard he regained consciousness but was in an “almost tetraplegic state with minimum movement of his upper limbs” and suffered numerous infections.

The court heard his neck area had been weakened by the rheumatoid arthritis. The coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, passed a verdict of accidental death.