An actor died after taking cocaine and a hallucinogenic at a stag party, an inquest has heard.
Alan ‘Ali’ Carter (37), from Kiltimagh, Co Mayo, appeared as DJ Scorpio Lyons on the RTÉ comedy series Hardy Bucks.
At an inquest on Thursday, Dr Eleanor Fitzgerald, coroner for Mayo, recorded a verdict of death by misadventure and warned about the dangers of combining drugs and alcohol.
She said it had become normal for people to drink and take cocaine together, despite a “risk of sudden death in certain people”.
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“That risk is not recognised and not understood. The dangers of taking alcohol and drugs cannot be overestimated,” Dr Fitzgerald said.
It is “such a pity, such a tragedy” that a “young person out celebrating” had his young life “ended in such a manner”, she said.
“This is the reality [of] what we are dealing with. We don’t want to be losing our loved ones to avoidable death.”
The court heard Mr Carter attended a stag party last August 26th and returned with three friends to rented accommodation on the outskirts of Westport town where they consumed cocaine.
Evidence given to the court was that he also took a hallucinogenic drug called dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and had a seizure from which he failed to recover.
In a statement to gardaí, one of the actor’s friends said Mr Carter was “rolling around on the ground”. He said the friends administered CPR and called an ambulance.
Consultant pathologist Dr Tamas Nemeth, who carried out a postmortem examination, said the cause of death was acute heart failure due to a heart attack caused by cocaine.
Dr Nemeth said Mr Carter had a heart issue with up to 80 per cent stenosis, which describes the abnormal narrowing of a blood vessel or other structure.
He said Mr Carter’s death was caused by the cocaine levels combined with his stenosis. The death was, in Dr Nemeth’s opinion, due to unnatural causes.
He said cocaine had been a trigger of heart attacks in patients free of coronary artery disease and more frequently in patients with underlying coronary atherosclerosis, which is a build-up of plaque in the artery walls.
Mr Carter’s partner Lorraine told the coroner he was born with an enlarged heart, had high blood pressure, had childhood sleep apnoea and was overweight.
