Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
A&E gaffe cost man life
£12K for dad’s old rum
A WINE collector is toasting his good fortune after getting £12,000 at auction for 10 bottles of 1940s rum left to him by his dad.
Delighted Charles Metcalfe admitted he had no idea how valuable they were – and he still has one more to sell.
He kept the dust-covered bottles of Lemon Hart rum stashed in a cupboard for years after his father died and only recently decided to get them valued.
Charles, of Balcombe, West
Sussex, said: “As a wine collector,
I‘m aware of the value old wine can fetch at auction, but I hadn‘t imagined that my father‘s rum would be worth quite so much. “Each bottle has sold for around £1,000, some for £1,450, in Whisky.auction‘s sales since September. The last is next month.” The 11 bottles were saved by Charles‘s father as a souvenir from his time working with Lemon Hart & Sons in 1946-48, following his return from a prisoner of war camp.
Auction director Isabel Grahamyooll said: “Interest in rum is growing around the world.”
A MAN who died from a blood clot would still be alive if he had not been sent home by a consultant who’d had two hours’ sleep.
Alexander Perron, 34, died at home in Fenton, Lincs, on October 18, 2018.
He had been admitted to Lincoln County Hospital with a swollen leg and chest pain four days earlier, an inquest heard.
Alexander was diagnosed with a blocked artery. He was due to be transferred to an emergency unit, but was discharged with antibiotics for a chest infection after locum consultant Dr Mohammed Elsakka didn’t see his notes.
The inquest at Lincoln Cathedral Centre on Thursday heard Dr Elsakka had no more than two hours’ sleep before he was called back into work as there were 56 patients in A&E. Elsakka admitted that Mr Perron would have survived had he stayed.
The coroner concluded the death was due to natural causes contributed to by neglect and that Dr Elsakka’s decision was a gross failure.