A young Dublin man who was found dead in his bedroom last year after socialising with friends the previous night suffered a sudden fatal cardiac event, an inquest has heard.
Gary Indiana David Keenan (23), a pizza chef from Seapark Drive, Clontarf, was pronounced dead at his home on the afternoon of September 25th, 2023.
A sitting of Dublin District Coroner’s Court on Monday heard a postmortem on the deceased’s body had found a severe narrowing of his main coronary artery.
The coroner, Cróna Gallagher, said anyone with such a condition, where more than 70 per ceny of the artery was blocked, could suffer a sudden cardiac death.
The inquest heard Mr Keenan was a fit, healthy young man who had no awareness of the condition which posed a high-risk factor for sudden death.
Mr Keenan’s mother, Sarah Howarth, said she had last spoken to her son on the day before his death when he informed her that he was not going to work that day and was meeting some friends later that evening.
Ms Howarth said she went to bed that night at 11:15pm but knew her son had arrived home after hearing the alarm going off and being reset at 12:30am.
She told the inquest that she woke up the next morning at 5:30am and left the house for work with another son, William, at 8:40am.
Ms Howarth said she texted Gary later to walk the dog but had got no reply.
She told the coroner that she knew something was wrong when she got home at around 1:20pm as her son was not downstairs when he would always have been up by that time for work.
The inquest heard how she found her son in a foetal position on a mattress on the floor of his bedroom with some blood in his nose and mouth.
“He had changed colour already,” Ms Howarth recalled.
The inquest heard paramedics who arrived on the scene did not attempt to resuscitate Mr Keenan as rigor mortis was already discernible on his body.
In reply to questions from the coroner, Ms Howarth said her son enjoyed good health apart from suffering with asthma.
She claimed he was very fit and would cycle everywhere, including to his workplace in Walkinstown.
Ms Howarth said he also liked to work out and was following a keto diet.
She also confirmed that he had never complained of chest pains.
The inquest heard that Ms Howarth had mentioned to a garda at the time of her son’s death that it was possible that he might have taken cocaine.
However, she clarified to Dr Gallagher that she thought that someone had been using cocaine at parties held in her house, but she did not believe her son had ever taken the drug.
In a written statement, a friend of the deceased, Liam Parnell, said he had met Mr Keenan with another friend in Fairview Park on September 24th, 2023, where they had a few cans of beer before going to the Brú House pub in Fairview where they had 3–4 pints while watching a rugby match on TV.
Mr Parnell said the three of them cycled back to Clontarf at 11:30pm where they just stayed talking for about an hour before going their separate ways home.
He claimed Mr Keenan had been happy the whole evening and had no complaints about anything.
The deceased’s girlfriend, Shauna Harney, said she had been texting her boyfriend throughout the day and knew he was going out meeting friends that evening.
Ms Harney said she texted him at 1:15am the following morning to say she loved him and that he had twice replied with texts to say that he loved her too.
Asked about any drugs that the deceased might have taken, Ms Harney admitted that both she and her boyfriend did smoke cannabis but stated they never took cocaine.
Garda Seán Ryan, who attended the fatal scene, said there were no injuries on Mr Keenan’s body apart from some blood on his face.
Garda Ryan also confirmed there was no sign of any alcohol, drug use or drug paraphernalia in the deceased’s bedroom.
Dr Gallagher said the results of the postmortem found no evidence of cocaine in Mr Keenan’s body, while alcohol levels were at 190mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood – just under four times the legal drink driving limit.
The coroner said the quantity of alcohol on its own would not cause death and was “not a poisonous amount.”
However, she said it was an independent risk factor, particularly for a person who was unaware they had an underlying heart condition.
Dr Gallagher said toxicology tests did not examine bodies for cannabis.
However, she said there was some evidence that the drug “could cause or accelerate the development of heart disease.”
The coroner observed that it was not fully known why Mr Keenan developed such a heart condition.
She welcomed the fact that other members of his family had got tests to check to see if they had the same problem.
Returning a narrative verdict, Dr Gallagher noted that the cause of death was a sudden cardiac event due to a severe narrowing of the main coronary artery with alcohol toxicity as a contributory factor.
Offering her condolences to Mr Keenan’s family, the corner said she could only imagine the shock they suffered on the death of such “a fit, healthy and very promising young man.”
