A 58-YEAR-OLD woman with leg ulcers was left brain damaged, unable to speak and totally dependent on nursing care when she suffered a heart attack following a procedure at a Dublin hospital, an inquest has heard.
Helen Dodd of Castlebyrne Park, Blackrock, Co Dublin, who had Type 2 diabetes, was admitted to St Michael’s Hospital in February 2005 with severe pain in relation to leg ulcers.
The mother-of-four underwent a (femoral) angiogram – a medical imaging technique used to visualise the inside of blood vessels – at St Vincent’s University Hospital on February 22nd, 2005.
Consultant surgeon Denis Mehigan told Dublin City Coroner’s Court it seemed to be an appropriate response given the amount of pain and delayed healing Mrs Dodd was having.
Mrs Dodd’s vital signs were stable during and immediately after the procedure, which was carried out by Dr David O’Donnell, but she then complained of difficulty breathing and suffered a heart attack and water-logging of the lungs. She was resuscitated and transferred to the intensive care unit, but had suffered an irreparable brain injury, which resulted in weakness of all four limbs and an inability to communicate or to swallow.
Mrs Dodd was transferred to the National Rehabilitation Centre, Dún Laoghaire in September 2006 and was admitted to the Royal Hospital, Dún Laoghaire in December of the same year.
She was pronounced dead at St Vincent’s hospital on September 27, 2008, approximately one hour after she was rushed there from the Royal Hospital, after she vomited while she was being administered a nebuliser.
Mrs Dodd was in a single room by herself at the time.
Medical director at the Royal Hospital at the time Dr Mary Deane said nurses would have checked on her regularly and her records state she was checked a few minutes earlier.
A postmortem found Mrs Dodd died of aspiration pneumonia as a result of long-standing brain injury. The inquest was unable to establish the cause of the “acute event” on February 22nd, 2005 which coroner Dr Brian Farrell termed the “critical event.”
Dublin City Coroner’s Court heard that Mrs Dodd’s vital signs remained stable throughout the procedure and before her transfer out of the room where the procedure was carried out.
Legal representative for the Dodd family Fred Gilligan said the family would have liked to have put a number of questions to Dr O’Donnell, who provided a written report to the inquest.
The coroner recorded a narrative verdict, a summary of the facts of the case.