Coroner's Finding: Hughes, Ellis Newton
Deceased
Ellis Newton Hughes
Demographics
83y, male
Date of death
2020-02-13
Finding date
2022-11-30
Cause of death
aspiration pneumonia
AI-generated summary
Ellis Newton Hughes, 83-year-old retired mining engineer with metastatic prostate cancer, sustained a femoral fracture in a fall on 5 February 2020. He underwent open reduction and internal fixation on 10 February 2020 at Royal Hobart Hospital. Post-operatively he developed aspiration pneumonia, presenting with vomiting on 12 February and acute deterioration with hypoxia on 13 February, dying the same day. The coroner found medical care at RHH was of good standard. While the initial ambulance response took 2 hours 8 minutes (beyond the 60-minute target for priority 3 cases), the coroner explicitly found this delay was not related to his death. The death resulted from natural causes precipitated by the fall, surgery, and underlying advanced cancer causing frailty and cachexia.
AI-generated summary and tagging — may contain inaccuracies; refer to original finding for legal purposes.
Clinical conditions
Contributing factors
- femoral fracture from fall
- post-surgical period following open reduction and internal fixation
- advanced metastatic prostate cancer with cachexia
- frailty
- poor oral intake and vomiting
- minimal urine output and renal failure
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