A post-mortem examination showed the heroin substitute, methadone, in the system of a 3 1/2 year-old boy, Dublin City Coroner's Court heard yesterday. Aaron Myles Sommers was found dead by his parents at their home at Gallanstown Lawn, Ballyfermot, on May 11th, 1996. Efforts to revive him failed.
The post-mortem showed that he died from the aspiration of gastric contents secondary to the ingestion of methadone.
The boy's mother, Ms Valerie Sommers, said her son fell asleep on the couch at about 11 p.m. on May 10th. She put him to bed and slept beside him. She woke at about 5 a.m. and he was breathing heavily. She woke again at 7.30 and he was making funny noises. When she woke again about 9.30 a.m. she was worried that he wasn't moving, pulled the covers off and started shaking him.
The boy's father, Mr Myles Cahill, said he let the boy's uncle into the house about 9 a.m. and they were chatting when they noticed that Aaron wasn't moving.
Both parents said they used methadone. They kept it in a kitchen cupboard, which was about six feet from the floor. They said they used a child's bottle to measure the methadone and drank the drug from a cup. A small trace of the drug might have been left on the cup. Aaron didn't drink from a bottle.
Pathologist Dr Barry Kierse said death was due to the aspiration of gastric contents secondary to the ingestion of methadone. The amount of methadone the boy took was not revealed by the analysis. He said the gag reflex would have been suppressed by the methadone. The jury recorded a verdict of accidental death.
The Dublin City Coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, sympathised with the family, and said the case emphasised the stringent precautions which had to be taken to prevent access by children to all medicines and not just methadone.