A DAD-OF-FIVE died after mistakenly pouring washing detergent on a bowl of cornflakes instead of milk, an inquest has heard.
Tom McDonald was rushed to St Vincent’s University Hospital (SVUH) in Dublin on March 9, 2023, after his daughter realised he had accidentally poisoned himself.
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“It was so quick – he was perfectly well and then all of a sudden he is gone,” his other daughter, Aisling O’Grady, said at a sitting of Dublin District Coroner’s Court on Thursday, according to the Irish Examiner.
Tom’s daughter, Ailbhe McDonald, had been living with her dad for the previous 19 months after her mum, Viola, had moved to live in a nursing home, her written statement said.
The 92-year-old from Dublin, Ireland, had been diagnosed with dementia five years earlier and the condition had got noticeably worse in the five months before his death.
Ailbhe said her father would get confused over whether it was day or night and would often get up at strange times for food.
She claimed to have heard him making cornflakes in the kitchen at around 3:30am on the night of the fatal incident.
After 20 minutes had passed and she had not heard him return to bed Ailbhe went downstairs to check on him.
When she found him, Tom mentioned feeling unwell after eating something.
Ailbhe then noticed purple detergent in the bowl of cornflakes, and her dad confirmed that he had eaten it.
The coroner, Crona Gallagher, heard Tom complained of still feeling sick after vomiting up a small amount of food and drinking some water.
Ailbhe said her dad was reluctant to go to the hospital but she called an ambulance 30 minutes later when he started to complain of a sore throat and having to cough.
The inquest heard doctors at SVUHl sedated the patient but his condition deteriorated and he was pronounced dead at 8:50am.
Aisling then gave evidence that her dad’s dementia often fluctuated in severity over the years.
But at the time of his death, the disease had been getting worse.
Aisling said her dad would have eaten anything he found in the fridge as he was no longer able to make food for himself.
Tom would have eaten food from the fridge that had gone off or be out of date, she claimed.
WEAKENED SENSE OF TASTE
While there had been no major incidents in the kitchen, like leaving the oven on, she said her family were getting concerned about how difficult it was getting to care for their dad at home.
Aisling said the detergent was stored “nowhere near the fridge”.
“I didn’t think he would have drunk something he was not familiar with,” she added.
She claimed her dad would also have been able to open the cupboard even if it had been fitted with a child lock.
Tom had a weakened sense of taste – a common symptom of dementia – around the time of his death.
This, Aisling said, could have been why he did not immediately realise he was eating detergent.
The inquest heard he was a retired member of the Defence Forces, who had served in the Congo.
Later in his career, he became an accountant.
‘NO ANTIDOTE’
In a statement, John Legge, a consultant in emergency medicine at SVUH, said Tom had vomited in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and was treated as a priority case in the emergency department.
However, he had issues with his breathing as the detergent had affected his lungs as well as his stomach.
Dr John said advice the National Poisons Information Centre was contacted but that doctors were told that there was no antidote to the detergent.
The consultant said Tom’s condition continued to deteriorate which meant it was unlikely that he would survive.
The inquest heard that a postmortem confirmed that Tom had died from aspiration pneumonitis – an inflammatory reaction in the lungs which had resulted from the swallowing of the detergent.
Dr John said Tom’s dementia and heart disease also contributed to his death.
However, she stated he was unlikely to have died at that time if he had not ingested the detergent.
The coroner said that most bottles of washing detergent contained warnings about avoiding contact with the eyes and skin as well as being kept away from children.
Returning a verdict of accidental death, Dr John said she would bring the very unusual circumstances of Tom’s death to the attention of the relevant authorities.
The coroner said she had never come across such a death before.
Is it ageing or dementia?
Dementia – the most common form of which is Alzheimer’s – comes on slowly over time.
As the disease progresses, symptoms can become more severe.
But at the beginning, the symptoms can be subtle or mistaken for normal memory issues related to ageing.
The US National Institute on Aging gives some examples of what is considered normal forgetfulness in old age, and dementia disease.
You can refer to these above.
For example, it is normal for an ageing person to forget which word to use from time-to-time, but difficulting having conversation would be more indicative of dementia.
Katie Puckering, Head of Alzheimer’s Research UK’s Information Services team, previously told The Sun: “We quite commonly as humans put our car keys somewhere out of the ordinary and it takes longer for us to find them.
“As you get older, it takes longer for you to recall, or you really have to think; What was I doing? Where was I? What distracted me? Was it that I had to let the dog out? And then you find the keys by the back door.
“That process of retrieving the information is just a bit slower in people as they age.
“In dementia, someone may not be able to recall that information and what they did when they came into the house.
“What may also happen is they might put it somewhere it really doesn’t belong. For example, rather than putting the milk back in the fridge, they put the kettle in the fridge.”