The inquest into the death of Monaghan woman Ms Christina Knox (35) heard her situation had been "hopeless" and if she had been brought to Monaghan General Hospital which was six minutes from her home rather than being taken by ambulance to Dundalk, it would not have made any difference.
Louth County Coroner Mr Ronan Maguire said he had decided to hold an inquest into Mrs Knox's death in the public interest given that she had been taken to hospital in Dundalk and not Monaghan.
Mrs Knox had married just 18 months before her death and her husband Robert was the first person to give evidence yesterday.
He said she become very ill around 8 a.m. on August 14th last year. She had begun to vomit and told him she had never been so sick. She continued to be ill and later that morning he rang a doctor who arranged for an ambulance to go to their home at Clontibret outside Monaghan town.
Louth Coroner's Court heard the ambulance crew was dispatched from the ambulance station at Monaghan hospital and arrived at 10.20 a.m. Emergency Medical Technician Ms Sharon Byrne said Mrs Knox was not breathing and started CPR.
The crew asked for back-up as they believed she was in cardiac arrest but were told there was none and to bring the patient to the nearest appropriate hospital, which was the Louth County Hospital in Dundalk. Asked by the Coroner why Dundalk was nominated, Ms Byrne said Monaghan hospital had been taken off call for accident and emergency cases from the ambulance service in July last year.
She outlined how she had used a defibrillator machine to see if Mrs Knox could be "shocked" to help her heart. However, the defibrillator detected an asystole rhythm which was not suitable for shocking and the inquest subsequently heard from A&E consultant Dr Conor Ecclestone that this meant there was no electrical activity in her heart.
He said even with full access to life-support systems in a hospital, the survival rate for someone in such a situation was 6 per cent, "that is they have a 94 per cent chance of dying".
On whether it would have made a difference if she had been brought to Monaghan hospital, Dr Ecclestone said: "In view of the lack of by-stander CPR and the asystole rhythm, I don't think it would have made a difference in this case; the situation was hopeless."
The post-mortem revealed Mrs Knox had an enlarged heart and died from an acute lack of oxygen to the heart.
Traces of four types of drugs were found in her blood but the pathologist, Dr John Ryan, felt all but one were within the therapeutic range and the fourth was below the toxic level.