Doctor with dementia had tragic fall after he wandered out of wife’s sight

A RETIRED doctor with dementia wandered from his home and died from a fall after he was left out of sight for just a few minutes, an inquest has heard.

Dr William Brosnan suffered a fracture to the base of the neck in the fall just five minutes from his Dublin 4 home.

The 81-year-old and his wife were preparing to go shopping when he wandered from the sitting room onto the street outside their home on Clonkeen Road, Deansgrange. His wife Monica had gone upstairs to get ready to leave, and was away from him for just a few minutes, Garda Liz Gallagher told Dublin Coroner’s Court.

Dr Brosnan, known as Bill, had a full-time carer who was off that day. He needed constant observation, the inquest heard. ‘She [Mrs Brosnan] just went upstairs to put on her shoes, it would have been a matter of minutes,’ Garda Gallagher said.

When she found her husband missing, at around 4pm on Sunday, July 27, last year, Mrs Brosnan searched the road and then drove around the local area before contacting gardaí at 5pm. Witness Emer Gernon was driving along Kill Avenue when she saw Dr Brosnan cross the road.

Traffic had slowed on both sides to let the elderly man 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 help him, and a passing doctor and a qualified first aider tried to aid the injured doc tor at the scene. He was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead the following day.

The cause of death was a transverse fracture of the odontoid peg which caused an encroachment into his spinal chord. He also suffered from severe coronary heart disease, according to an autopsy report.

‘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.