Man with dementia died in fall after wandering from home

A doctor who had dementia wandered from his Dublin home and died after injuring his neck in a fall, an inquest has heard.

Dr William Brosnan, of Clonkeen Road in Blackrock, suffered a fracture to the base of his neck in the fall on Kill Avenue on Sunday July 27th, 2014.

He and his wife, Monica, were preparing for a trip to the shops when he wandered from the house out onto the street.

Mrs Brosnan was upstairs getting ready to leave the house and was gone only a matter of minutes, Garda Liz Gallagher told Dublin Coroner’s Court.

Dr Brosnan had a full time carer who was off that day. He needed constant observation due to his condition, the inquest heard.

When she found her husband missing at about 4pm, Mrs Brosnan searched up and down the road and then got into her car to search the locality before contacting gardaí at 5pm.

Witness Emer Gernon was driving her car along Kill Avenue when she saw Dr Brosnan cross the road. Traffic had slowed both sides to let him, cross, she said.

“He was shuffling across the road and when he reached the footpath he seemed to try and break into a run. He fell forward, he didn’t have time to put his hands out,” she said.

She called an ambulance and went to assist Dr Brosnan. A passing doctor and a qualified first aider attended to Dr Brosnan at the scene as they waited for the ambulance to arrive.

Dr Brosnan was rushed to St Vincent’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead the following day at 4.10pm. The cause of death was a transverse fracture of the odontoid peg which caused an encroachment into his spinal chord. An autopsy found he also suffered from severe coronary heart disease.

"It's not entirely clear whether he tripped or had a cardiac event," Coroner Dr Brian Farrell said, returning a narrative verdict outlining the injuries sustained in the fall.