A man suffered a heart attack and died after a junior doctor at a Belfast hospital gave him a massive overdose of insulin, an inquest heard today.
Walter Kenneth Johnston (92) was injected with ten times the correct dose of insulin by a junior doctor at Belfast City Hospital who claimed he did not know how to treat him.
Dr Nuzaimin Ahmad used the wrong syringe to administer the drug in the early hours of February 25th, 2005.
"I believed that one unit of insulin was equivalent to one millilitre," Dr Ahmad said in a letter read out at Belfast Coroner's Court. "I have not received any previous instruction in the handling of insulin."
Dr Ahmad had only been at the hospital for three weeks and admitted that he was "unfamiliar with the heart monitor machine".
Mr Johnston, from Knockview Road, north of Belfast, had undergone surgery for an aneurysm in the knee and was recovering poorly.
Deputy State Pathologist Dr Alistair Bentley said: "Although he was elderly and had a number of life threatening conditions I don't believe he would have died at that time had he not received an insulin overdose."
PA