7:43pm Monday 4th February 2008
By Telegraph newsdesk
A MAN introduced to drugs while serving in the army died from his addiction.
An inquest heard that Peter Anthony Millin, who served 16 years in the Royal Artillery, suffered a leg injury while working on a roof a week before his death.
And the hearing was told the injury may well have prompted him to take drugs to suppress the pain.
Mr Millin, 34, of Primrose Bank, Blackburn, died as a result of septicaemia due to bronchopneumonia from chronic drug ingestion over a period of time.
His mother, Annie McCourt, said that while serving in the army he started "dabbling" in drugs. She said at the time of his death he had been on a drugs rehabilitation course for three months.
"I wasn't aware he was injecting drugs directly into his groin," said Mrs McCourt.
Dr Richard Prescott, who carried out a post-mortem examination, said the pneumonia could have resulted from the injection of microbes with the drugs, aspiration pneumonia as a result of depressants inhibiting the gag reflex or the effect of drugs over a prolonged period of time.
"I don't know which of the three has caused the blood infection or the bronchopneumonia but I think the chronic drug ingestion is a major factor," said Dr Prescott.
Coroner Michael Singleton said there was no suggestion of a drugs overdose.
"It would seem the use of drugs over a long period of time has rendered him liable to an infection," said Mr Singleton who recorded a narrative verdict reflecting the sequence of events leading to death.
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