A TEENAGE boy died after swallowing 20 anti-depressant pills that had been prescribed to his mother, an inquest in Cork has heard.
The coroner was told yesterday that the boy loved life and was planning his 18th birthday party.
The pills he took, Dothiepin – a tricyclic anti-depressant, sold under the brand name Prothiaden – are some of the most dangerous drugs that can be taken in an overdose, Cork City Coroner’s Court heard.
His parents said he had just begun his summer holidays when he took the pills at his family home on the night of June 6th, 2010.
Shortly after 11pm, he returned home and ate with his family. Later he confessed to his mother that that he had taken 20 Dothiepin pills, a drug used to treat depression, which belonged to her.
His mother told the inquest that at the time she did not fully believe him and did not check whether the medication was missing. She checked on him to ask how he was feeling and ask whether he needed a doctor, but he said he felt fine.
At 4am his parents heard him snoring in his bedroom as they got up to tend to another sibling but noted that he had been sick.
The following day at 2pm, the teenager was found pale and lifeless in his bedroom. He was pronounced dead shortly after.
In her postmortem report deputy State pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster recorded the cause of death as an overdose of Dothiepin, which induced sleep followed by deep coma.
Gardaí investigating his death found nothing suspicious. He left no note or any documents, and had never expressed any wish to harm himself.
Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane said: “He intended to do it, but there is nothing to suggest he intended to end his life.”
A jury returned a verdict of death by misadventure.