Inquest hears how hospital patient died

After about 15 years of smoking heroin, normal cigarettes and later taking methadone, Scott Dempster (49) of Frandor Road, Bognor Regis, started to suffer from the lung disease emphysema.

He died on January 15 this year in the intensive therapy unit of St Richard's Hospital in Chichester.

Raymond Dempster told the inquest his brother had decided to give up smoking and he recalled how he was in hospital the five days before his death.

He said: "He was the type of person who would not want to bother anybody and he would cope with what he had until someone insisted.

"Because of the condition he was in, I said you have got to go to hospital. He was very sweaty and he was struggling with breathing. He looked as ill as you can look."

He lived with his partner Angela Guppy, who was on holiday until the Sunday before his admission to hospital on January 10.

After feeling ill for several days, he was taken to accident and emergency and he was eventually transferred to the intensive-therapy unit where it was decided he should have a tracheostomy (a pipe fitted to his throat which helped him breathe).

At 8pm on the day of his death the nursing shifts changed over on his ward, and before leaving, shift leader Sandy Barnett checked on him. She said: "He was breathing. He looked comfortable, he was a good colour."

During her shift, nurse Nicola Anderton took a five-minute toilet break at 8pm.

When she returned, she saw Mr Dempster beckoning her over and waving the pipe which had become disconnected from the ventilation machine.

She re-connected the pipe but seconds later he collapsed back on to the bed. Dr Ben Singer, Dr Ben Greenwood and Dr Justin Dickens came over to help.

There was no clear reason why he removed the pipe as there was nothing blocking the air flow through it or in his lungs.

The inquest heard how Dr Greenwood had only five minutes earlier helped Mr Dempster adjust the pipe after he said it felt heavy.

The doctors and nurses tried to resuscitate him but at 8.30pm he was pronounced dead.

Miss Guppy was with him until around 7.30pm the night he died. She said: "When I left the hospital even the doctors and nurses said they were really pleased with his progress."

West Sussex coroner Roger Stone, who recorded a narrative verdict, said: "The deceased, a patient suffering severe emphysema (a lung disease which causes breathlessness) and cor pulmonale (restricted blood flow leaving the heart), in the intensive therapy unit at St Richard's Hospital, became disconnected from a non-invasive ventilating machine.

"He sustained acute hypoxia (lack of oxygen around the body) in a cardio respiratory arrest (heart failure) despite active resuscitation measures taken when adequate ventilation and cardio output could not be reached and maintained."