Head injury led to driver’s death

THE death of a Failsworth man who drove his car into a lamp post was the result of a brain injury, an inquest has determined.

Frederick Moores (77), of Ravenoak Drive, had a suspected epileptic fit at the wheel of his car in Hollinwood Avenue last August 16. He and his wife were travelling to see their son.

Mr Moores was taken to the Royal Oldham Hospital where his condition worsened and he died four days A consultant neuropathologist at Salford Royal, Dr Pal, explained how she had seen two areas of injury in Mr Moores’s brain: one a bleed between the skull and the brain’s surface, the other a lesion to the thick band of nerve fibres, the corpus callosum, connecting right and left sides of the brain.

Dr Pal said: “A lesion in this area results in a deep unconsciousness that has a very poor prognosis.”

Mr Moores had seemed alert after waking following he accident. A few hours later he complained of a headache, suffered a seizure and slipped into unconsciousness.

“It is my theory that he suffered the damage to his corpus callosum during his seizure and this was determined as unsurvivable brain damage.”

Mr Moores had a pacemaker and defibrillator fitted in May 2014 and was taking the anti-coagulant warfarin, which would have prevented the brain bleed from clotting quickly.

Royal Oldham Hospital accident and emergency consultant Thomas Bartram explained that no CT scane of the patent’s head had been taken because the absence of symptoms of head injury had to be balanced against the risks of possible heart problems relating to the pacemaker and temporarily reversing the warfarin treatment

Coroner Simon Nelson said: “I don’t believe that I would be able to find that any of the care Mr Moores received contributed to his untimely death.”