A YOUNG woman who was "looking forward to the future" died of a drug overdose last February, the Dublin Coroner's Court found yesterday.
Ms Sylvia Keogh (32), mother of two, had a drug problem but had been receiving treatment and had been drug free since last December, her father, Mr Thomas Keogh, told the court.
She had been living in her parents house in Blessing ton for the previous five weeks, but had just moved back into the house in Corbally Avenue, Tallaght, which she had previously shared with Mr Kevin Bardsley, and was to start a new job in Rathfarnham.
She dropped her children off to their childminder and rang her parents at lunchtime to say she had an appointment with an accountant. At about 10.40 p.m. the family received a call from the baby sitter to say that she had not collected the children.
Mr Keogh and his wife went to get the children, calling to the Corbally Avenue house on the way. They found her car at the house and the lights on. "Sylvia was lying in the bed," Mr Keogh said. "There was a bent needle beside her, and a syringe with the plunger down. She had been crying as the mascara was all down her face"
He told his wife to ring an ambulance, which she did, and then rang Mr Bardsley at his parents' home, where he was staying. "His reaction was strange," he said. "He came and went into the house and pulled it apart."
Ms Keogh was taken to St James's Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival.
Mr Bardsley told the court he received a telephone call on the night of February 7th from Mr Keogh, who said "Sylvia's gone", meaning she was dead. He went to the house in Corbally Avenue and found Mr Keogh outside.
In the house he found a spoon which looked as if it had been used in taking heroin. He went to St James's Hospital and asked to see Ms Keogh. She had a tourniquet in the form of a man's tie on her left arm, which he removed. Then he returned to Corbally Avenue to wait for gardai to arrive. He had last seen Ms Keogh alive the previous evening, and said she was in good form.
Mr Bardsley said when he went to the house he saw a second syringe three quarters full of blood. "Would that not indicate there was a third party involved?" he asked.
Mrs Keogh said that all she and her husband saw was an empty needle on the floor. Garda Michael Cuffe of Tallaght Garda station said that when he searched the house at about 3 a.m. all he and his colleagues found was one syringe on the floor. Garda Cuffe said he was satisfied there was no third party involvement.
Dr MacDonald of St James's Hospital told the court he found evidence of recent puncture wounds to Ms Keogh's wrists and elbows. A cannabis compound was found in her urine and opiates in her blood. There was excess fluid in the lungs, which could be associated with an intravenous injection of an opiate compound. Mrs Keogh asked him if he could say from the puncture marks if the needle had been forced into her arm, and he said he could not.
The coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, told the jury that there was no note or letter found to suggest she intended to take her life. While there were concerns from the family and also from Mr Bardsley about the precise circumstances of her death, there was no objective evidence of a third party.
"An overdose in this situation is by no means uncommon. In this court every week or every other week there are inquests into the deaths of people who have accidentally overdosed." He said he was not putting a verdict of unlawful killing to them because it did not appear to be appropriate.
The jury brought in a verdict of death by misadventure.