ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1188, 7 December 1894, Page 31

ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES

DEATH OF AN ASYLUM PATIENT.

♦ Mr J. Ashcroft, Coroner, held an inquest at the Hospital on December 3 on the body of an old man named Robert Gibbs, who died in the Mount View Asylum on Saturday morning. Dr Collins said deceased had been suffering for a considerable time from what witness took to be softening of the brain, and on his advice Mrs Gibbs sent him to the Asylum. Deceased had a black eye and sores on the upper part of botKJfgs just beneath the knees, and also on thfffeet on both sides. He should imagine the black eye was the result of a fall, and that the injuries to the limbs were due to his crawling about in the padded room. Thomas Kelly, head attendant at the Asylum, said deceased was quite helpless when he entered the Asylum. He cut his eye by falling out of a chair. He was then put to bed in a padded room, and was not allowed out unless specially attended. Dr Collins said that having heard Kelly’s evidence he could only say it was a pity deceased was put in a position that he could fall out of the chair. Arthur Wells, day attendant at the Asylum, said the chair from which deceased fell was only 10 or 12 inches high. Dr King, Medical Superintendent at the Asylum, said he thought the attendant didt rightly in putting deceased in a low chair.' It was decidedly undesirable to place him under restraint, as he would have suffered a great deal, more than he did from those injuries. The cause of death was coma from diseased congestion of the brain. The jury, of which Mr C. Pankhurst was foreman, returned a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence, and added the following rider:— <c That in cases where accidents arise to a patient in the Asylum, the relations should be communicated with as soon as possible afterwards.”