A WOMAN who died from cardio-respiratory failure was wrongly stated to have had methadone in her blood stream following a mistake during toxicology tests at the State Laboratory, a new inquest into the woman’s death heard yesterday.
The family of Lorna Cole (62), Bishopscourt Way, Bishopstown, Cork, had been surprised when a toxicology report came back from the State Lab stating that Ms Cole, who died at Cork University Hospital on July 30th, 2008, had traces of methadone in her blood.
The second inquest into Ms Cole’s death heard yesterday how Cork city coroner Dr Myra Cullinane had asked Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster to check with the laboratory to see if there was some error.
Dr Bolster said she was unable to get the toxicologist who carried out the initial tests but another toxicologist checked the records and confirmed that traces of methadone had been found in the sample.
She told Ms Cole’s family that it was only in the wake of this confirmation that she had gone ahead and had held the original inquest on December 19th.
However, the toxicologist who carried out the original analysis decided to carry out a second test and found no traces of methadone, leading to an amended toxicology report which enabled Dr Cullinane to hold yesterday’s new inquest.
Dr Bolster told the coroner that Ms Cole died from hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy, or damage to the brain and central nervous system, caused by inadequate oxygen following cardio-respiratory failure due to the ingestion of alcohol.
Dr Bolster said the initial toxicology report showed that Ms Cole had a blood alcohol level of 374mg per 100ml, which was above the average fatal limit of 355mg per 100ml, while the methadone level was found to be 0.44 microgrammes per 100ml of blood.
As a result she had believed the combination of both alcohol and methadone had depressed Ms Cole’s central nervous system leading to cardio-respiratory failure but she had revised her view and now believed her death was triggered solely by alcohol consumption.
Dr Liam Regan, manager of the human toxicology section at the State Laboratory, apologised for the error and the distress caused to Ms Cole’s family by the laboratory’s mistake in its analysis of a blood sample taken upon her admission to CUH on July 29th.
Dr Regan said the blood sample was tested in duplicate for both alcohol and prescribed drugs. The screening for prescription drugs was conducted on August 12th when the results on both tests showed up positive for traces of methadone. A confirmatory analysis was also carried out on one of the duplicates and this also showed the presence of methadone.
The sample was analysed again on December 19th, 2008, and no traces of methadone were found. While the alcohol level was found to be the same, an amended toxicology report was issued immediately, correcting the error, Dr Regan said. The most likely explanation, he added, was that a sampling error occurred during the first analysis and that this sample was also the one that was used for the confirmatory analysis.
A verdict of death by misadventure was returned by Dr Cullinane.
