DUBLIN CITY coroner Dr Brian Farrell yesterday expressed outrage at a case in which a golf ball had been placed in the throat of man who had died of a heart attack, possibly as a prank.
The coroner said it was an “unconscionable and malicious intrusion into a death investigation” which resulted in great upset to the man’s family.
Kevin O’Doherty (48), Castleside, Rathfarnham, died suddenly on January 27th, 2010.
A postmortem at St James’s Hospital two days later found Mr O’Doherty, who had a history of high blood pressure, had died of a cardiac arrhythmia or abnormal heart rhythm due to hypertensive heart disease.
The body was then removed to an undertaker’s mortuary, where as the embalming process got under way, the golf ball was removed from the back of Mr O’Doherty’s throat.
Dublin City Coroner’s Court was told that Joe Cronin, who was embalming the body at Fanagan’s Funeral Directors mortuary at Aungiers Street with a colleague, found a hard round object at the back of the man’s throat. No foreign body was present at the time of the postmortem, pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan told the inquest.
Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis, who carried out a second postmortem, said had the golf ball been there at the time of the original postmortem, it would “undoubtedly” have been found.
The matter was reported to gardaí at Kevin Street and a Garda investigation was launched.
Garda Det Insp JJ Keane said he was satisfied the golf ball was inserted after the first postmortem and before the embalming.
“We’re satisfied the golf ball had nothing to do with the death of Mr O’Doherty,” Det Insp Keane added. “We interviewed all of the staff at St James’s Hospital and at Fanagan’s and we’re at a loss as to how this came about. We can only surmise it was probably a prank.”