MEMBERS OF the public had a lucky escape when a man suffered a heart attack while driving, four days after he had been discharged from hospital following a similar cardiac event.
Doru Coldea (50) of Park Place, Islandbridge, Dublin was just 50 metres from his workplace at Northwood Complex, Santry, Dublin when his car mounted a kerb and struck a tree on the evening of January 28th, 2008.
Michael Ochran, a passerby, told an inquest into his death at Dublin City Coroner’s Court that he saw a car coming towards him on the wrong side of the road with its two wheels on the footpath. The vehicle then mounted the kerb and a hit a tree, he said.
The emergency services arrived at the scene soon after and Mr Coldea was found to be unresponsive. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the AE department of Beaumont Hospital.
A postmortem found Mr Coldea died of a heart attack due to severe heart disease.
The inquest heard Mr Coldea was admitted to St James’s Hospital six days before his death on January 22nd after suffering a cardiac arrest and was discharged on January 24th.
A friend, Mirlea Plesanu, told the coroner Dr Brian Farrell that Mr Coldea had been prescribed medication from St James’s but that he had not started taking it the day of his death.
The court heard that Mr Coldea, a Romanian national had started work at the Aer Arann building at the entrance to Northwood estate where he worked as a security man a short time before the incident and had left the building, most probably to go to nearby shops.
A jury of four men and two women returned a verdict of death by natural causes and expressed concern that Mr Coldea was discharged from hospital care without a certificate stating that he was fit to be at work and to drive a car.
Dr Farrell said he did not know what the situation was, but that he would relay the jury’s concerns to the hospital and to the deceased’s employer Cratos Security.
“If he was on a busy road it could have been potentially serious for other road users,” the coroner said.
Mr Plesanu said Mr Coldea was happy to return to work.