Victim’s family warn crystal meth users: There’s no antidote
THE family of a man who could not be saved by paramedics after taking crystal meth on New Year’s Day today warned of the dangers of drugs.
Victor Bede, 53, collapsed shortly after midnight in Queensway. An ambulance was delayed due to a computer crash but a coroner found its earlier arrival would not have helped due to the amount of drugs in his body.
Mr Bede’s brother Rob Reason said he had been surprised to discover that there was no antidote to amphetamine overdoses, and called for “recreational” drug users to be alerted.
In a statement on behalf of his family, Mr Reason told the Standard: “One thing that we learnt at the inquest was that there is no antidote to the drug that Victor used — methyl amphetamine.
“We would like to see that fact widely disseminated as a warning to so-called recreational users.”
Westminster coroner’s court heard that the first 999 call about Mr Bede was made at 2.18am. The caller could not get through but was called back. Mr Bede was initially rated as a second priority call but was upgraded when he stopped breathing.
An emergency crew arrived at 3.16am. London Ambulance Service’s computer system had crashed at 12.30am on the busiest night of the year, forcing call handlers to take details on paper until 5.15am. A total of 2,810 calls received a delayed response.
The court heard that Mr Bede died after taking seven times the “safe” limit of methyl amphetamine. Coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe gave a narrative verdict and said: “This was the worst time to have a computer failure because it was such a busy time.”
The family’s statement said they accepted the ambulance delay “probably did not materially affect the outcome for Victor”. They added: “We were also pleased with the seriousness with which LAS treated the incident and their responses to both their own internal investigation and the external review of their... procedures.”
The family received an apology from the police after a mix-up in confirming Mr Bede’s identity meant they only learned of his death by chance from a friend a week later. @RossLydall