Woman who was fatally kicked in the head by horse told ‘condition not bad enough’
Family claim hospital wouldn’t transfer her despite their requests
THE family of a young woman who suffered a fatal kick in the head from her horse claim hospital staff repeatedly insisted her condition was ‘not bad enough’ for her to be transferred to Dublin for specialist treatment.
The parents of Bryonny Sainsbury told an inquest about their mounting concern at their daughter’s deteriorating health over three days in the Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar after she was brought there following an incident at a riding stables on August 26, 2021.
Ms Sainsbury, 25, a hairdressing salon owner from Briskil, Newtownforbes, Co. Longford, died in Beaumont Hospital on August 31, 2021. A consultant neurosurgeon at Beaumont, Donncha O’Brien, said his medical team were ‘completely powerless’ to act to treat Ms Sainsbury as they were not informed about her deteriorating condition in Mullingar until she was suffering ‘prolonged seizures and in a critical condition’.
Several scans taken over a number of days in Mullingar, which were assessed remotely by radiologists based outside Ireland working for a private company, were regarded as showing her condition as ‘stable’.
However, Professor O’Brien, who reviewed the scans, said he believed they showed increased swelling on her brain which had not been recognised at the time.
He said his medical team in Beaumont had not been kept updated about the results of these scans as well as the fact Ms Sainsbury was complaining of persistent headaches and vomiting. The neurosurgeon said he would certainly have arranged for the patient’s transfer to Beaumont if he had been aware of such information.
The inquest yesterday at the Dublin District Coroner’s Court also heard that no blood tests, which could have detected critically low sodium levels in the patient, had been carried out on Ms Sainsbury for over 48 hours in Mullingar, despite being told by staff in Beaumont that they should be taken regularly. They also advised they should be informed of any change in her condition.
‘We were completely powerless to act as none of this information was available to us,’ said Prof. O’Brien. He told the coroner, Cróna Gallagher, that he was under the impression that Ms Sainsbury was in ‘good’ condition and was ‘completely gobsmacked’ at what had happened.
Prof. O’Brien said he believed that the situation was ‘still salvageable’ if the patient had been transferred a few hours earlier to Beaumont on August 29, 2021.
However, counsel for the Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar, barrister Caoimhe Daly, said it was not correct to suggest that there was no contact between the two hospitals over the course of a weekend based on the evidence of other witnesses.
The deceased’s mother, Alison Sainsbury, told the inquest that she was alerted to the incident in the stable where her daughter kept her horse and recalled hearing paramedics discuss whether she should be brought to Beaumont or Mullingar. Ms Sainsbury said she was unable to see her daughter until the evening of August 28, 2021, when she was ‘in and out of consciousness’.
She stressed that she had repeatedly asked why Bryonny was not being transferred to Beaumont as her condition seemed to worsen.
‘She was not bad enough. That’s what they kept saying,’ said Ms Sainsbury. She said her daughter’s condition continued to deteriorate the following day and she was ‘rolling around the bed in pain’ when there was ‘a mad rush’ to transfer her to the hospital’s intensive care unit before she was subsequently transferred to Beaumont.
‘I don’t know why she was left in the state that she was,’ Ms Sainsbury remarked. She recalled being told by a neurosurgeon at Beaumont that her daughter was brain dead as a result of several fractures to her skull and a blood clot on the brain.
Ms Sainsbury told the coroner that staff in Mullingar claimed they were being guided by specialists in Beaumont. Her husband, Chris, told the inquest that his daughter kept falling onto him when she tried to stand up on August 29, 2021.He recalled that his daughter was ‘screaming in agony’ as she was being transferred to the hospital’s ICU. ‘I hear that every night... her screaming in pain,’ said Mr Sainsbury.
A consultant surgeon on call in Mullingar at the time, Shahbaz Mansoor, said he had seen the patient while doing his rounds on August 28, 2021 and believed she was deteriorating.
However, Prof. Mansoor said he would not interfere with the patients of other consultants as it would be ‘insulting’.
He said he was ‘100% sure’ that other doctors were in contact with each other about Ms Sainsbury.
A consultant radiologist in the Midland Regional Hospital, James Slattery, said there was nothing on the patient’s scans which had warranted any urgent situation as the results appeared ‘stable’.
The hearing will resume today.
‘Completely powerless’ ‘Screaming in pain’