Shock death of Barnard Castle man, 41, after rare condition

A FIT and healthy Barnard Castle man died after accidently breathing in his vomit when he had of severe food poisioning, an inquest heard.
Martin Murrell, of Bridgegate, was only 41 years old when he died rare condition caused by food poisoning in February last year.
An inquest held in Crook last Thursday heard that the block paver developed a lung infection caused by breathing in his own vomit.
Assistant coroner Crispin Oliver described how Mr Morrell, a fit man who had lived an active life, fell ill on February 6 but only sought medical help two days later.
Mr Oliver said: “He went from home to being dead by before noon, which I think is quite startling.”
He added that Mr Morrell was so poorly on February 8 that his GP sent him directly to Darlington Memorial Hospital by ambulance.
Giving evidence about his arrival at the hospital, A&E duty consultant Dr Shaz Afzal said: “Very clearly I remember when he was brought in by the paramedics – Martin himself was shouting ‘I can’t breath, I can’t breath’, so he was having breathing difficulty. As soon as I saw him I moved him to our very high dependency area and we started the initial assessment.”
A blood test was taken and stabilisation drugs were administered, Dr Afzal said.
He added: “We found that he was severely hypoxic (a condition where there is a shortage of oxygen in a person’s body), despite the fact he was on oxygen. That was quite worrying for me at that stage.
“As soon as I got those results I called the intensive care doctors as well.
“Unfortunately none of the treatment seemed to be working – he was getting worse and worse, minute by minute.
“After an initial half an hour we were unable to control his airway and breathing, and at that time we decided we have to put him on the ventilator. But while we are doing that, his heart was not beating adequately and that was the time we lost the pulse.”
The doctor said the exact time of death was 11.52am.
Mr Murrell had arrived at the hospital at about 9.30am.
After being questioned by the family, the consultant said it would not have made a difference had he known that Mr Morrell had food poisoning.
He added: “We were dealing with a very, very sick patient. He was so ill that we were more focussing on tracking his oxygen level, tracking his glucose level. The treatment we had given him covered every possible scenario. It came as a shock to me when we heard.” The food poisoning was only discovered in October last year after toxicology and histology reports were returned.
Reading from a pathologist’s report, the assistant coroner said: “In my opinion this 41-year-old gentleman has died as a result of aspirational pneumonia as a consequence of presumed vomiting relating to gastroenteritis – essentially he has been sick and he has breathed it in.”
He added that the food poisoning was probably caused by ecoli, shigella or campylobacter.
Dr Afzal explained how the infection developed. He said: “When you vomit, sometimes you can’t vomit out all the contents, instead of going back into the stomach, they go into the lungs.
“That is how the aspiration pneumonia developed. But for aspiration pneumonia to develop is very rare in my personal experience as an emergency medical consultant.”
Evidence was given that Mr Morrell had eaten a chicken bake that day, as well as a meal of sausage, beans and chips with his son. His son did not get ill. Later that evening Mr Morrell and his partner had eaten pre-pared meals of crumbed chicken with sauce bought from a local supermarket. His partner, Nicola Gargate, did not fall ill.
Mr Crispin said it was impossible to determine the cause of the food poisoning.
A jury of seven returned a verdict of death by aspirational pneumonia caused by gastroenteritis.