Arklow Man Died After Being Left in Cold

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Arklow Man Died After Being Left in Cold

Wednesday, August 8 2007

An Arklow man died from hypothermia when his body temperature plummeted to 31.4 degrees - normal body temperature is 37 degrees - after a friend left him in an unconscious state outside his apartment on a cold January night.

Michael Byrne (32) of 49 Church View, Arklow, Co Wicklow, was pronounced dead at 2.52am at Loughlinstown hospital on January 25 last, an inquest heard yesterday.

Byrne, who was a chronic asthmatic and had mobility problems with one side of his body following a road accident in which he broke his neck, left the family home in a taxi at 11.50pm on January 24, after a few drinks.Joseph Hughes, of 73B, Lr Main Street, Arklow, told the court that Michael Byrne had called to his house at midnight and had asked him to help him to take heroin.

He said both of them injected the drug and afterwards Byrne became groggy and he took him outside for some air.

Hughes told the court he left Byrne outside leaning against a wall and that he was snoring and unconscious.

He said he left him there on his own for between 15 and 20 minutes and then brought him out his jacket.

When he was unable to rouse him, Hughes called the emergency services.

The emergency services received a call to attend to a male who was collapsed at 1.09am on January 25.

Michael Byrne suffered a cardiac arrest on his way to the hospital in the ambulance and later died.

A toxicology screening revealed no heroin in Byrne's system.

He was, however, heavily intoxicated - with 237 ml per cent of alcohol in his blood and 337 ml per cent of alcohol in his urine.

Joseph Hughes told the inquest he pretended that he didn't know Byrne to the emergency services when they arrived on the scene because he panicked.

Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis pronounced the cause of death as hypothermia due to acute alcohol intoxication.

Coroner Dr Kieran Geraghty returned a verdict of death by misadventure.

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