Mystery over death five years after injury

MYSTERY surrounds the death of a man who died five years after suffering a ‘traumatic brain injury’.

John Foster, 44, was found dead at his home on Heys Lane in Oswaldtwistle on October 23 last year, an inquest heard.

Blackburn Coroners Court heard a postmortem examination failed to establish a cause of death and coroner Michael Singleton recorded an ‘open conclusion’.

The inquest was told how Mr Foster, who had learning difficulties, was admitted to hospital in September 2011 after falling around 20ft from a second floor window ‘while under the influence of alcohol’.

He sustained a brain injury and fractures to his left collarbone, ribs and a ‘wedge fracture’ to part of his spine.

He was taken to Royal Preston Hospital where a piece of bone was removed from his skull and replaced with a titanium plate but he later suffered postoperative infections.

Mr Foster was taken to two more facilities for neuro-rehabilitation following his ‘traumatic brain injury’ and was given community care until July 2012.

The inquest heard how his memory was ‘severely affected’ by the brain injury and he required help with paperwork, finances, meals, laundry and ‘prompting to attend to personal hygiene’.

A post-mortem examination by pathologist Dr Muamar Al-Mudhaffer said the cause of death was ‘unascertained’.

Mr Singleton said: “One of the potential significant findings is the negative finding with regards to the absence of any biting of the tongue because it’s clear he had suffered a significant brain injury back in 2011 which would have rendered him susceptible to developing epilepsy.

“There is no evidence that he had any previous seizures and in fact there was no seizure witnessed in that he was by himself at the time he died.

“What effectively Dr Al-Mudhaffer is telling me is that Mr Foster may have suffered either an unwitnessed seizure, because a seizure gives rise to irregular electrical activity which can cause the heart to stop suddenly and unexpectedly, or in the alternative could be what doctors call a cardiac arrhythmia, an irregular heart trace.

“Neither of those are detectable post-mortem. In those circumstances the only conclusion available to me is an open conclusion.”