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Asthma boy death shock
A GRIEVING South Yorkshire family buried their "warm, kind-hearted" 16-year-old son thinking he had died of a drug overdose - when actually he was killed by a sudden asthma attack.
When former Dinnington Comprehensive pupil Daniel Antcliffe, of Blyth Close, Whiston, died in his sleep in January, police told his family it seemed he had died due to drugs.
But yesterday Rotherham Coroner Nicola Mundy recorded he actually died of acute reactive asthma, despite never having displayed any symptoms bar a bad cough when he was five years old.
Daniel's furious dad, Paul Farmer, told the court: "I had to bury my son being told he had died of an drug overdose.
"Then I found eight weeks later there were no drugs in his body that could have killed him.
"He didn't have a drug history. It was just something he tried."
The inquest heard Daniel had spent the weekend of his death at the house of his friend Timothy Newberry, 18, in Maltby.
Timothy and Glen Buttle, 20, told the court they and Daniel spent the weekend smoking cannabis and drinking beer, and that Daniel had taken an Ecstasy tablet - "a one-off" - on the Friday night.
Timothy said his friend had "seemed completely normal - fit and healthy", until he found him lying on the floor next to his bed when he woke on the afternoon of Sunday January 11. Paramedics pronounced Daniel dead at the scene.
Det Sgt Caroline Armitage said she requested a toxicology report after learning Daniel had taken Ecstasy, and had previously experimented with solvents.
Toxicologist Dr Stephen Morley said traces of cannabis and Ecstasy found in Daniel's body "did not contribute to the mechanisms of death".
And Dr Leonard Harvey said after conducting an initial post-mortem examination he was "quite convinced" Daniel died from hyper-extended lungs brought on by asthma. He said he had been obliged to hold back his findings until the toxicology report had been concluded.
"My understanding is there may be no symptoms at all before an attack of status asthma, and in some cases people die during the very first onset," he said.
He added an attack could be caused by smoke, cold, or exercise.
Ms Mundy, recording a narrative verdict, said: "Daniel died from an acute asthma attack brought on by external irritants."
She said no-one could be sure what caused the attack, but it could have been a combination of cannabis smoke and cold.
Speaking outside court Daniel's mum, Tracey Antcliffe, 35, said she was "very glad" a drug overdose had been ruled out - but rejected the court's asthma verdict.
She said she believes her son died from sudden arrhythmic death syndrome - a heart defect which can strike adults down without warning - and criticised the court for refusing to take a family history of SADS into account.
Mrs Antcliffe paid tribute to "a warm, kind-hearted lad with millions of friends".
"He was daft as anything and soft as a brush," she said.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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