Drugs may have contributed to robber’s cardiac arrest

COCAINE taken by an armed robber who died after being restrained on the ground may have contributed to his death, an inquest has heard.

Shane Bryant, pictured, and two accomplices robbed the Co-op, in Market Street, Ashby, and forced terrified staff to give them cash.

But a group of drinkers in the town centre that night, led by an off-duty policeman, confronted the robbers and managed to tackle and pin down Bryant, who later died of heart failure.

The inquest has been told his cause of death was an inability to breathe.

During the third week of the inquest, the jury has been hearing from more witnesses, including medical experts.

A statement from Dr David Kirby, a consultant at Luton and Dunstable Hospital, was read out. He had been asked to comment on what might have caused the cardiac arrest, which is when the heart stops beating.

The consultant said in his statement that the cause of death was a lack of oxygen being pumped to the brain and other organs, most likely due to the physical restraint applied as Bryant struggled to get away from those holding him down.

Dr Kirby said there was alcohol and cocaine present in Bryant’s system, and that “the presence of those substances would most likely have increased the likelihood of an adverse outcome”.

He said: “Physical exertion was likely increased by the affects of the cocaine.”

Dr Kirby said that extra physical exertion meant even more oxygen was needed by the heart, which was struggling to get blood pumped around the body.

Meanwhile, the physical restraint of Bryant’s upper body, and the pressure on his legs as he was pinned down, limited the blood getting back to the heart so it could be pumped out again with oxygen to feed the brain and organs.

He said that, as a result, “less blood was being returned to the heart”, and that “vastly reduced” amount of circulation led to a “vicious cycle and led to cardiac arrest”.

Dr Kirby also said that medics at the scene had little chance of resuscitating Byrant, and that only 1.7 per cent of patients who suffer cardiac arrest ever survive more than 30 days after the event.

The inquest also heard the statement of the first medic on the scene – an ambulance service member named only as Paramedic A – who happened to be passing through Ashby town centre on her way back from a job in Measham.

She arrived before the police, and described attending to a man whose face had been stamped on by Bryant, a man who had been bitten on the arm by Bryant, as well as the two female Co-op staff who had been left “upset and frightened” by the ordeal.

Later, after uniformed officers had arrived and handcuffed Bryant and restrained him with leg straps to stop him struggling, she was called over when police officers noticed he had stopped breathing.

He was treated with CPR and adrenaline, but never regained consciousness. He was taken to the Queen’s Medical Centre, in Nottingham, where he was later pronounced dead.

The paramedic told the inquest that she at “no time saw anything in the way Bryant was being restrained that caused me concern”.

■ The inquest continues.