Dad had heart attack on M4
AGRANDFATHER suffered a cardiac arrest while driving on the M4, forcing his wife to take control of the wheel before crashing into a lamppost, an inquest was told.
Gwilym Jones, 76, was driving his wife, Audrey Jones, home from the Royal Gwent Hospital in the early hours of April 26 last year when he suffered a cardiac arrest.
Mrs Jones had suffered a fall several days earlier and was advised by a GP on April 25 to attend the hospital, in Newport, from where she was sent home after being checked over in the early hours of April 26.
In a statement read by assistant coroner Nadim Bashir, widow Mrs Jones described how she and her husband, who had Parkinson’s and heart disease, were making their way back to their home in Caerphilly via the M4.
Ms Jones said her husband’s driving became erratic and he began to veer off the road and hit their Citroen C3 car against the central reservation.
“I remember saying: ‘Stop, slow down, you are going to kill us,’” she said, and she noticed that Mr Jones’ eyes were closed and his head had dropped to his chest.
Pontypridd Coroner’s Court yesterday heard that Mrs Jones then took control of the wheel and managed to steer it to the opposite side of the road onto the junction 32 slip road at Coryton before it rolled up an embankment, eventually hitting a lamppost, which brought it to a stop.
Officers from South Wales Police were already in the area after receiving a phone call from a member of the public who witnessed the “erratic driving”.
Mr Jones, a retired owner of a catering company and hotel manager, was taken to the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, where he died on May 2.
Police Sergeant Christopher Street, of South Wales Police’s forensic policing department, told the coroner he would describe the incident as a minor road traffic collision due to the fact the car was travelling at a relatively low speed when the impact with the lamppost occurred.
He added the evidence he collected from the crash site “found nothing that could have caused a fatal injury within the vehicle”.
A statement from Mr Jones’ daughter, Michelle Davies, was also read to the court by Mr Bashir. She said that as his Parkinson’s condition progressed he had to use straws to drink but as far as the family were aware he had no issues with driving.
A post-mortem examination found Mr Jones’ cause of death was heart disease and Parkinson’s disease. It also said he may have experienced what is known as a freezing due to his Parkinson’s disease, which involuntarily blocks a person’s movement, which may in turn have led to the cardiac arrest.
Mr Bashir recorded a conclusion of death by natural causes by heart disease, with Parkinson’s as a contributor.