INQUESTS

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24653, 24 August 1945, Page 3

INQUESTS

' UNDEIt ANAESTHETIC « NO BLAME ATTRIBUTABLE ” “This unfortunate woman met her death by a very slender chance. No blame was attributable to anyone, and ho metUoal practitioner neglected to do anytlUag that could be done. After her collapse everything was done to save Ijer, saidCoroner (Mr Raymond Ferner). when delivering his finding at an Inquest yesterday into the death of Margaret Costello. Her condition had been very abnormal arid unusual, he continued, and the patholo* gist’s evidence showed that the condition would be present In about one case in IU.UUO post mortem examinations. Theodore Selstead Thomas, a house surgeon at the Christchurch PubUc Hospltal, said he had examined Mrs Costello when she was admitted to the hospital, and could find nothing that suggested that the operaUon proposed should not of carried out. He knew what had been disclosed by the post mortem examination. and in making a routine examination the possibility of such a condition would be kept in mind, but it was such a rarity that it was hardly ever found. - That he prescribed pentothal sodium as an anaesthetic was stated Id evidence by Dr Edward Harold Harvey Taylor, senior anaesthetist at the hospital. A few minutes after the operation commenced the patient collapsed, and did n {J* E® s *?™}? to all restorative measures which were carried out. When quesUoned by the Coroner, the witness said that the possibility of such a condition as was disclosed by the post mortem examlnaUon would not be in his mind when he made his examination, and he had *J® ver ®®?. n such a case. Had he known the condition of the patient’s heart he would have prescribed a different anaesthetic, The assistant pathologist at the hospital (Dr. D. T. Stewart). In giving evidence of the post mortem examination he conducted said that there was a transposition of the heart and liver. Such a condition was rare, and was said to occur only once in 10.000 post mortem examinations. Gross heart failure, he understood, was a contra-indication to the use of the anaesthetic pentothal. The congenital abnormality would tend to obscure the pathological condition of the heart, and to toe present case it had obscured two cardinal signs of heart failure—that toe heart and liver were enlarged. i The Coroner found that Mrs Costello died at Christchurch on July 20, her : death being caused by hear * ' congestion,, due to congenital tampon^ : tion abnormality of toe heart, ) by anaesthesia for a surgical operation. Verdict of Suicide The Inquest into the death of Bose Con- ' stance Townend was being conducted. without viewing toe body, and was at ’ the direction of the Solicitor-General, said ! the Coroner, who returned a verdict that • Miss Townend "came to her on 1 December 11. 1944, at Scarborough, near 5 Christchurch, the cause of herdeathbei ing suicide by deceased’s act to dropping , from a cliff at Scarborough Into toe sea, ' whilst of unsound mind.” In evidence. Turfln Robin Richards, a nurse at the St. George’s Hospital, said she had been visiting a family living at Scarborough on December 11. when she heard screams. When she . went. up J! hill she saw a woman on toe edge 01 a cliff, lying on her stomach. Witness spoke to her, but toe woman slid over the cliff. Witness identified a photo--7 graph produced In the Court as one of r the woman she had seen. The woman s e behaviour led her to believe that the v woman did not want to be saved, and e that her action in going over the cliff f was deliberate. M : Constable Thomas James Kearney gave ° evidence of searching for a body, fie e had been unsuccessful In his searches, y both at the foot of the cliff and on toe I, foreshore. , , d a shin bone and foot were found on c the beach at Taylor’s Mistake by WHc Ham Henry Darby on January 17, and s this had been handed to toe police. It was later examined by Dr. Stewart, who gave evidence. Other Verdicts Hie Coroner also returned toe following verdicts:—That Anthony Marshall Strachan died on July 19. from shock following severe burns, accidentally suffered when he pulled down on himself a kettle of boiling water; that Leslie e John Gillespie died at Christchurch on is July 11 from ventricular fibrillation folie lowing heart failure with venous congesB . tion; that Jim Staple died suicidaUy on i‘ July 29. ’ Medical Evidence ,4. After evidence of a post-mortem examination had been given by Dr. A, B. ,s Pearson, pathologist at the Christchurch ‘ e 1 Public Hospital, the inquest Into toe death is of Ivy Ellen Corboy was further adIjourned tiU August 27. .