A DUBLIN father-of-two who began taking methadone following a marital breakdown died after taking two days’ worth of methadone doses on the same day, an inquest has heard.
Michael Kenny (43), McCarthy’s Terrace, St James’s Walk, Rialto, died on December 24th, 2008.
His nephew went to wake him that morning to say there was a telephone call for him and found him dead, the inquest was told.
Mr Kenny’s father William said he had last spoken to his son in the early hours of Christmas Eve.
He said he had given out to his son, as he had been acting erratically, and Mr Kenny felt Michael had taken something. “I’d seen him take a cup of methadone the day before. He made the comment: ‘I should have kept this til tomorrow’.”
Mr Kenny’s son had split up with his wife a few years previously and had begun taking methadone then. The court heard he had told a GP he had been injecting heroin, most likely to get on the methadone programme sooner. He had never injected the drug.
A postmortem carried out by pathologist Dr Muna Sabah gave the cause of death as methadone toxicity, reflecting the fact Mr Kenny took two doses of methadone in one day.
However, Dublin city coroner Dr Brian Farrell noted the methadone in Mr Kelly’s system was just above the maintenance level. He said it was his opinion that Mr Kenny died from a combination of sedative drugs and methadone.
Toxicological tests had also found benzodiazepines and the antidepressant drug Mirtazapine in Mr Kenny’s system.
Dr Farrell said Mr Kenny’s death was “unfortunate, tragic, like an accident”. “He didn’t achieve a massive overdose . . . he just overdid the methadone that day.”
He recorded a verdict of misadventure, noting Mr Kenny had not intended to harm himself.