DETAILS of the final hours of a homeless Limerick man whose last meal included methadone, vodka and domestic firelighters were heard at Limerick Coroner’s Court last week.
Christopher Kelly (50) originally from St Munchin’s Street, St Mary’s Park was found unresponsive on the kitchen floor of a house in Kennedy Park last March.
A friend of the homeless man told Coroner John McNamara that they met at the soup kitchen in Limerick city on the morning before his death. They met again at the homeless action centre where Mr Kelly failed to get a bed for the night.
“We met later on that evening and ‘tapped a few cans’ before we got the soup run at the top of William Street. We kept ‘tapping for cans of drink’ and money to buy alcohol.
Mr Kelly’s friend phoned a woman who lived locally and asked if he could go to her house for more drinks. Mr Kelly went as well as he had no bed for the night.
There, Mr Kelly took 11 UpJohn 90s Xanax tablets, cans of beer and cider, and he “necked vodka”. He also took methadone and told his drinking companions that he was starving.
“I went to bed but I heard him rooting around downstairs and found him lying on his side at 2am eating firelighters.
“I took the firelighters off him and gave him pretzels before I left him. I went down again at 4am and he was after getting sick so I turned him on his side and he was breathing. I thought he would just sleep it off.”
The court that Mr Kelly was found the next morning lying unresponsive on the kitchen floor.
Pathologist Vourneen Healy said Mr Kelly had bruising over his eyelids from a fall in the days before his death. Xanax tablets were found in his socks and Ms Healy confirmed the presence of the white grainy material in his mouth to be firelighters.
Toxicology tests revealed toxic levels of alcohol and a large quantity of drugs in Mr Kelly’s system, including alprazolam, methadone and methadone metabolite
Dr Healy said that death was due to asphyxia secondary to the toxic effects of drugs and alcohol.
Expressing sympathy to the Kelly family, Coroner John McNamara said that “Christopher had an amount of alcohol and other drugs in his system at the time of his death and it is clear that his actions led to an unexpected outcome.”
A verdict of misadventure was returned by the Coroner.
