A Bolton man accidentally killed himself after taking a powerful morphine-based painkiller to sooth back ache that had been prescribed to a dying man for ‘end of life’ care, an inquest heard.
Martin Ball, 28, had been drinking all night when he complained of aches and pains at a friend’s house and raided a medicine cabinet in the hope of finding medication to alleviate his discomfort.
But instead, the plasterer and father of one found a bottle of OxyNorm – a super-strength medicine which had been prescribed three years earlier to his friend’s late grandfather – at the back of the cupboard.
With no idea of the danger, Mr Ball – known to friends as ‘Marve’ – drank a quantity of the potentially lethal medication and fell asleep on the sofa.
Mr Ball’s best friend Christopher Young said: “He had been complaining about backache. He had been talking about it a lot that night. He hadn’t really mentioned any pain before that.
“I saw him with the bottle. I didn’t know where he got it from. I saw him drink it. He had a swig and I drunk some of it as well. I don’t know how much I had. Marve seemed alright. He didn’t complain about anything. We stayed at the house until about 6am then decided that everybody would get taxis home. I had fallen asleep.
“I tried to wake him up but he wouldn’t. Then I noticed he had turned blue so I tried to resuscitate him. Before he went to sleep he was alright. I tried to do CPR and then the ambulance came. Four people had a drink of that medicine. I should have said to the police but I was upset and I apologise for not saying that.”
Mr Ball was initially heard snoring loudly but when his friends tried to wake him later that morning to go home in a taxi, he was unresponsive and cold to the touch.
An ambulance was called and he was rushed Royal Bolton Hospital in Greater Manchester where he was soon pronounced dead.
Tests later showed he had a deadly amount of oxycodone – a derivative of the medicine – in his system, with its effects exacerbated by alcohol.
The 250ml bottle of OxyNorm – a Class A drug derived from morphine – had been used in November 2011 to treat the grandfather of Mr Ball’s friend Terri Blanchard in the last months of his life as he received round-the-clock care from the family.
The Bolton inquest was told how Mr Ball had a long history of stomach and back complaints and would regularly drink Gaviscon straight from the bottle to ease heartburn or knock back more paracetamols than recommended, it was said. He was also prescribed antibiotics for heartburn and acid reflux.
The tragedy occurred last August after Mr Ball went out drinking with friends. He drank several pints of cider plus spirits and Jager bombs in a pub before eventually ending up at the home Miss Blanchard – Mr Ball’s childhood friend – in Harwood, Bolton.
Miss Blanchard told the Bolton hearing: “Later on in my house he had back pain and he lay on the landing on my back stretcher. He said ‘my back is killing me,’ so I pulled the back stretcher out and he was lying on it.
“At one point in the evening I saw that he had a bottle of medicine in his hand. It was something that was my grandad’s. When he was dying I used to pick the prescriptions up for my mum and then he passed away.
“That medicine had been in my car for God knows how many months and when I cleaned my car I put it in the cupboard with the other medicines. When I saw he had it I took it off him and put it back in the cupboard.
“I went to bed and Martin was on the couch snoring loudly and I left him there because I thought he was asleep. Before he lay down he was still drinking and being merry. I was woken by shouting downstairs and went down to find him in an unresponsive state.
“I just remember the medicine bottle being on the side and I grabbed it and gave it to the paramedics. There wasn’t much in it. I didn’t think keeping the medicine would cause any harm to anybody. I just left it there and never thought to move it.”
Initially, Miss Blanchard was treated as a suspect and interviewed under caution because of OxyNorm’s categorisation as a Class A drug.
Pathologist Dr Emil Salmo concluded that Mr Hall died from oxycodone toxicity exacerbated by a high level of alcohol.
He was found with 0.31mg of the drug in a litre of blood, with the therapeutic level usually registering at 0.03mg and the range associated with fatalities from 0.1mg.
He was also almost three times the legal drink-drive limit, with 214 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit is 80mg.
Recording a conclusion of death by misadventure, coroner Rachael Griffin said: “He was a young man who was very popular and a good, fun character. He also enjoyed spending many times with his young son.
“I have heard that at one point in the evening he had a medicine bottle. I am satisfied that because of his back pain he was feeling unwell and went looking for medication to relieve the pain as he would normally do.
“That bottle was OxyNorm, a form of oxyxcodone, a strong painkiller prescribed to Miss Blanchard’s grandfather. I am satisfied he drunk it of his own volition.
“I believe he took the medicine to ease the pain he was suffering as he had done in the past but sadly he took it without realising the dangers and possibly tragic consequences when taking medication prescribed to others.
“It is tragic and catastrophic what happened that night.”
Following the hearing, his mother Moya Ball, 61, a company director, said there should be more accountability with medication with a need for dangerous substances to be recalled.
“If he had known how strong it was he wouldn’t have taken it,” she said. “I think bottles like that need to be recalled by the people responsible.
”Terri would have never kept if she had known. It’s not her fault. If you have made a prescription for something you should have a responsibility to bring it back.
“The pharmacist would know it’s a Class A drug and they should keep control. He didn’t think for one second he was in jeopardy and taking that medication would put him in jeopardy.
“That man has been dead for three year, why has nobody gone back and asked where the medication was?
“He had no idea it was lethal. If he hadn’t taken it he would still be alive. He would have woken up with a hangover and that would have been it.”
His partner, Jodie Jones, said: “He was bubbly, loud, good fun, lovely to be around and very caring. He was the life and soul.”
Story via Cavendish Press.
Image courtesy of Facebook, with thanks.
