Mayo widow distraught it took an ambulance 40 minutes to reach her dying husband

A Mayo widow who struggled to keep her 42-year-old husband alive after he suffered a heart attack in her home spoke tearfully of her disappointment today that it took an ambulance crew 40 minutes to arrive to render medical assistance.

Speaking at an inquest into the death of Iona Marius Leva, at 24, The Maples, Ballyhaunis, his wife, Maria, said she kept doing CPR until an ambulance arrived from Tuam on June 11 last.

“I think I kept him alive until twenty past two," Ms. Leva told the Coroner for Mayo, Pat O’Connor, at an inquest hearing in Castlebar.

“It was too long," she continued. The ambulance came at 2.30 p.m. He took his last breath at 2.20 p.m.

“They (paramedics) worked on him for a while but they couldn’t bring him back."

Ms. Leva told the inquest her husband had been in apparent good health but he became suddenly ill.

“His last words were ‘I can’t breathe, my chest is painful'. Then he stopped breathing."

Consultant pathologist Dr. Fadel Bennani, who carried out a post-mortem examination, gave the cause of death as ischemic heart disease due to occlusive coronary atheroma.

Dr. Bennani said it was very unusual for a man of 42 to die of a heart condition but it does happen.

Sympathising with the wife and family of the deceased, the coroner told Ms. Leva: “You did all you could over a 30-minute period to keep your husband alive.”

The coroner returned a verdict of death from natural causes, in accordance with the medical evidence.

Sergeant Regina Carley, representing An Garda Síochána, joined the coroner in expressing sympathy with the wife and family of the deceased.