Nurse’s car hit patient - Nurse Choo Mulligan finds patient underneath a car
Published: 6 May, 2010
by JOSIE HINTON
A MAN died after a “bizarre accident” at Whittington Hospital when he became trapped underneath a nurse’s car, an inquest heard.
John Whelan, 71, was taken to A&E at the Highgate Hill hospital on New Year’s Day after slipping on ice outside his home. His injury had been assessed as “minor” and he was thought to be waiting to be seen by a doctor, when a bystander spotted something strange attached to the front of a silver car that was leaving the hospital car park.
“At first I couldn’t see what it was,” she said in a statement to St Pancras Coroner’s Court on Thursday. “But then I realised there was a person hanging on the car.”
Nurse Choo Mulligan was leaving the car park at the end of her shift at around 9.45pm. She had taken a short-cut and was travelling the wrong way down a one-way street when she heard a “scraping noise”.
Ms Mulligan said she could not explain how he came to be under the vehicle. The incident was not caught on CCTV.
Mr Whelan was taken back into the hospital where he was treated for trauma injuries. He died five days later at Queen’s Square, University College Hospital, after vomiting a large amount of blood, caused by two ulcers in his oesophagus and bruising in his lungs.
Coroner Dr Andrew Reid recorded a verdict of death by natural causes “to which a bizarre accident also contributed”.