Father, 37, killed himself after taking a black market drug
Father, 37, who was frustrated by delay of his prescription pills for ongoing leg pain accidentally killed himself after taking black market drug without realising it was substitute for HEROIN
- Labourer Simon Field, 37, spoke to someone on phone and asked for morphine
- Had some pills and went to bed, where he was found unresponsive next morning
- Coroner in Heywood, Greater Manchester, recorded a verdict of misadventure
Labourer Simon Field, 37, seen with his partner Alison Howells, was so frustrated at a delay in the issuing of his prescription tablets he began asking around for unprescribed medication. Images are undated
A devoted father who suffered from ongoing leg pains accidentally killed himself after he took a black market painkiller without realising it was the heroin substitute methadone, an inquest heard yesterday.
Labourer Simon Field, 37, was so frustrated at a delay in the issuing of his prescription tablets he began asking around for unprescribed medication after he injured his knee while taking a shortcut over a fence.
He ended up bringing home an unlabelled bottle of what he thought was morphine and swallowed two mouthfuls of the drug, not realising it was the potentially lethal medication used to wean drug addicts off heroin.
He went to bed after being challenged by his girlfriend about the medicine but was found unresponsive the following morning when his alarm went off. He died despite efforts by paramedics to revive him.
The hearing heard Mr Field, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, was a ‘well-respected and family man’ who doted on his young daughter.
He suffered the injury to his knee last year when he jumped over a spiked fence but his foot slipped and a spike went through his knee.
Mr Field had an operation and was in pain ‘on and off’ for 18 months. He then started taking diazepam, an anti-anxiety drug, and the opioid dihydrocodeine for pain in his knee, according to his partner, Alison Howell.
‘It took some time for him to be properly medicated but in the week before his death he was the happiest I’d seen him in weeks,’ she said. ‘We went to Manchester together for the first time as a family, he bought our daughter loads of stuff because he had been paid.’
Mr Field (seen with his partner) suffered the injury to his knee last year when he jumped over a spiked fence but his foot slipped and a spike went through his knee.
Ms Howell said she heard her partner speaking on the phone to someone, who he asked for morphine.
‘I heard that and I didn’t know how to address it without having an argument, I dismissed it but clocked it,’ she said. ‘The next day he came in from work happy, I spotted in his rucksack a medicine bottle.
‘I approached him with it and asked what it was. He said “I need it for leg, my leg is killing me”. He said he got his medication tomorrow and that he would never take it again. He said it was morphine.
‘The next day he went to work and came back happy. He had been to this chemist and had his medication, he said “look I’ve got it now”. I asked where the bottle was and he told me it was gone.’
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The couple sat down to eat dinner but Mr Field had two mouthfuls and couldn’t swallow. An hour later he went upstairs and fell asleep in a ‘really strange position’ on the bed, Ms Howell said.
‘I knew that he was tired, he looked tired,’ she said. ‘He heard me come in the room so I then left him, I would say it was about 8.30pm our daughter went upstairs on her iPad before bed.
‘At about 9pm I went up, but it was snoring was that loud I decided I couldn’t sleep in there.
‘At about 4am in the morning I went to the toilet and could still hear him snoring but at about 7am his alarm went off for work and I went upstairs and that’s when I noticed that he wasn’t responding.
The hearing heard Mr Field, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, was a ‘well-respected and family man’ who doted on his young daughter
‘I 100% don’t believe that Simon would take medication to take his own life, I think it was an accident.’
Paying tribute to her partner, she said: ‘Simon was really funny, he was very loving and he loved his daughter. People called him the “big friendly giant”. He was a protector, he’d do anything for anybody.’
Toxicologist Julie Evans told the hearing in Heywood, Greater Manchester: ‘We found evidence of methadone – but no evidence of morphine. It is a morphine-substitute that may be used in pain management.
‘The problem with methadone is that what can be a normal dose for a regular user, may be fatal for someone who never used it.
‘He wouldn’t necessarily know that it was methadone. It is sold on the streets, he may not have known what colour it would be. There was no label on the bottle. For someone who is a naive user, the amount he had may be enough to cause fatal toxicity.
Police officers who attended the address after Simon’s death confirmed that there were no suspicious circumstances.
Recording a conclusion of misadventure, coroner Lisa Hashmi said: ‘Simon was quite clearly a well-respected and family man. But he was understandably frustrated that at the times treatment was available but delayed.
‘He had a physical problem and an injury to his knee but he had been happy, things were looking up. His main focus was his physical pain and he had taken it upon himself to take a different form of medication.’
The coroner continued: ‘I believe that he was mistaken when he was supplied the methadone. Whilst Simon will have developed a degree of tolerance to his medication, when we’re talking about methadone it is a different ball game.
‘I believe that he had took a number of glugs, realised he had been rumbled and when rightly challenged by you, he disposed of it somewhere else.
‘There are a number of issues here, self-medication, the supply of substances and the lack of tolerance which I believe he will have failed to appreciate and the overall combined effects.’
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