Kill warning not heeded
THREE days before Brian Scutt crashed his car into a Ravenshoe cafe causing a deadly gas explosion his wife Robyn told him she feared someone would be killed if he kept getting behind the wheel.
On the fifth day of the inquest into the 2015 tragedy, Mrs Scutt gave evidence, describing her husband’s stubborn attitude despite ongoing medical issues.
Two people died in the blast – cafe manager Nicole Nyholt and grandmother Margaret Clark – while 19 people were injured.
Mr Scutt, 54, was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial and died in August last year.
“The whole marriage he did what he wanted. He didn’t want to be told what to do,”
Mrs Scutt told the inquest.
“Three days before the accident I had a sit-down talk with him and said, ‘Look Brian, I’m really concerned about you driving and I’m concerned you might kill somebody’,” she said.
“There are things I would have liked to have done differently. Our marriage wasn’t a level playing field.”
When asked by Coroner Nerida Wilson whether she believed the crash was an accident, Mrs Scutt responded: “I don’t know.”
She said her husband rang her the morning of the crash and said he “sounded like he was going to vomit”.
“I didn’t tell him to stay home. I just said I hope you feel better,” she said.
The inquest has heard Mr Scutt had a long history of convulsive seizures and had been advised not times
Atherton Hospital emergency department senior medical officer Dr Briana Van Beekhuizen, who treated Mr Scutt after he was brought in by ambulance in August 2014 after a seizure, told the inquest she told him he could not drive or operate heavy machinery for two years.
Dr Van Beekhuizen told the court she was not aware at the time she could report information to the Department of Transport and Main Roads without breaching confidentiality.
She said even now there was no reporting system within the hospital to do this and if she wanted to in the future she would need to “Google it” on the TMR website.
The inquest today. to drive many continues