Coroner faults player whose ball struck mate
Golf course horror as friends celebrating birthday strayed into danger zone
A man who hit a golf ball towards mates in trees has been found partially responsible for the death of a friend hit in the head.
Queenstown builder Jaden Lawrence Goldfinch, 27, died in February 2018 — four days after sustaining a severe head injury at the Frankton Golf Centre.
Coroner Sue Johnson, after an investigation into Goldfinch’s death, ruled he died of a traumatic brain injury, the result of being struck on the left temple by a flying golf ball.
Goldfinch was at the golf centre with his partner and about 10 others celebrating a friend’s birthday on February 17, 2018.
The group paid to play nine holes of golf and had brought beers, which they were carrying in chilly bins.
Even before they teed off, they talked how they needed to be careful about where they hit the ball and where they stood, said Johnson.
“They played the first hole then moved on to the second. By this time the group had consumed a few beers.”
Goldfinch and three others played their shots into a line of trees and they walked over to look for them.
Johnson said they were “taking care not to walk in front of the others who were progressing down the fairway”.
As the four looked for the balls, Ashley King, another member of the group, teed off then moved up the fairway.
He came across a yellow golf ball from the nearby driving range and decided to hit it away from the fairway.
“I made sure that the other three mates had my attention, so they were looking at me when I went to hit the ball over them,” King told police.
One of the men in the trees saw King “take a swing” and hit the ball towards them.
“When he hit the ball, I thought it could go anywhere so I instinctively covered my head with my arms and turned away,” that man told the police.
Instead of going over their heads the ball “went left and curved towards a tree”.
At that moment Goldfinch walked out from behind the tree and the ball hit him in the side of the head.
His mates saw him drop to the ground.
Johnson said at that point he “sat up and was talking”.
He was bleeding from a cut on the left side of his head and his partner’s friend put ice from a chilly bin on the wound.
“Jaden was repeatedly asking what had happened but not remembering what he was told,” said Johnson.
Goldfinch was driven to the Lakes District Hospital Emergency Department. He was screaming and clutching his head but then started to drift in and out of consciousness.
“They arrived at the hospital within five minutes and Jaden began having a seizure as he was being taken inside.”
The doctor on duty ascertained Goldfinch had a severe traumatic brain injury and after consulting with an ICU consultant at Dunedin Hospital the doctor put Goldfinch on a ventilator.
He was given medication to reduce the raised pressure inside his skull, to manage his agitation and to sedate him and relax his muscles.
He was then transferred to Dunedin Hospital by helicopter and admitted to the ICU under the care of a neurosurgeon.
A CT scan showed brain injuries, including a large acute subdural haemorrhage with formation of a pool of blood which was between his brain and the dura, the brain’s outermost covering.
The neurosurgeon reported that this was due to rupture of an artery and was consistent with the impact from the golf ball.
“Jaden was taken straight to the operating theatre where he underwent a decompression craniectomy in which a portion of skull bone is removed to ease pressure on the brain,” said Johnson.
“It also allowed the brain to be accessed so that the haematoma could be removed.”
Back in ICU, Goldfinch’s pupils were dilated and not responding to light.
I therefore find that Jaden was partly instrumental in his own death.
Coroner Sue Johnson
“Despite being given maximal active treatment over the following four days, Jaden died at 5pm on February 21, 2018.”
Police said they were satisfied that there was no criminal liability or suspicious circumstances surrounding Goldfinch’s death.
Johnson said authorities were not made aware that the group had been drinking alcohol until after Goldfinch died. That meant it was impossible to know whether or to what extent Goldfinch’s or King’s judgment had been affected at the time.
“It is clear from the evidence that Ashley actually intended to hit the ball back to the driving range over [the group in the trees],” she said.
“He therefore intended to aim the ball in their direction even though he did not intend to hit them with it.
“But it is entirely foreseeable that the ball could have hit one of them.
“It is also entirely foreseeable that balls do not always travel straight ahead as planned; an unintended slice — as happened — can send a ball in an entirely different direction.
“I therefore find that Ashley was partly responsible for Jaden’s death by his deliberate action in hitting the ball in the direction of three people, with no regard for whether it might not go where he intended it and hit someone. I am satisfied that Ashley’s action contributed to Jaden’s death.”
Johnson said three of the group who went in to the trees “took care” not to walk in front of the others who were progressing down. “But Jaden moved ahead of them and then went behind a tree. By doing that he would not be able to see what was happening on the fairway,” she said.
“Jaden was already risking being hit by a ball by being at the side of the fairway forward of players on it. By going behind a tree, so that he could not see what was happening on the fairway, and then suddenly coming out from behind that tree, his risk of being hit by any stray ball increased.
“I therefore find that Jaden was partly instrumental in his own death and therefore contributed to it, although it was nowhere near as significant a contribution as I have found Ashley’s to be.”