A YOUNG civil engineer who took "lines" of cocaine with his flatmate before attending The Who concert at Dublin's Marley Park, and again when he returned home, was found dead in his en-suite bathroom a little over a day later, an inquest heard yesterday.
Francis Ryan (28) of Donnybrook Court, Donnybrook, Dublin was discovered dead in his bathroom by his friend and flatmate, Gerry Bennett, on the evening of July 1st, 2007, Dublin City Coroner's Court heard.
The friends, who had known each other since primary school at St Francis's de la Salle, Kilkenny, and who had lived at Donnybrook Court for two years, snorted a few "lines" of cocaine together before attending the concert on June 29th, 2007. When they returned home about 11.30pm, they had a few drinks and snorted more of the drug.
Mr Bennett, who described Mr Ryan in court yesterday as an honourable and very decent person, got up at 10.30 the following morning and told the court that while Francis looked like he might have been up all night, he was fine.
Mr Bennett took the bus into town to get a bus to visit his family in Kilkenny and was under the impression that Mr Ryan, a former student at DIT in Bolton Street, would probably sleep for the afternoon. When he returned to Donnybrook Court on Sunday evening he found his friend, who used cocaine socially, dead on the bathroom floor.
A postmortem by the State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy found he died from using cocaine.
"Cocaine is well recognised for causing cardiac and vascular abnormalities, sometimes causing sudden collapse and death," she said in a report. The cocaine was also cut with lignocaine. The coroner Dr Brian Farrell recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.
The inquest was one of two inquiries into deaths involving cocaine heard at the coroner's court yesterday. Darren Walsh (30) of Gurteen Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin was found dead in his bedroom by his brother on the afternoon of August 7th, 2007.
Graham Walsh returned home from the gym at approximately 3pm to discover his brother's body. A toxicology screening revealed a combination of cocaine, heroin, methadone and sedative drugs in Mr Walsh's system.