A dad died after falling from a motorway bridge having walked out of A&E, an inquest heard. Alan Dennison, 55, suffered 'unsurvivable' injuries following the incident on the M61 in Bolton on October 12 last year.
An inquest at Bolton Coroners' Court heard Mr Dennison went to the Royal Bolton Hospital after an ambulance failed to turn up at his home following a 999 call. Paramedics were asked to attend Mr Dennison's home the previous evening after he phoned police to report that he had 'stabbed himself' and was struggling with his mental health.
When an ambulance failed to turn up, he made his own way to hospital. He arrived at 6.30am and, after revealing that he was having suicidal thoughts, he was triaged for a mental health assessment.
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Within around 15 minutes of arriving, Mr Dennison left the hospital and made his way home. He was later seen 'behaving erratically' moments before falling from a bridge over the M61. He suffered 'multiple blunt force impact injuries' and was pronounced dead by paramedics, the hearing was told.
The inquest heard Mr Dennison suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and that his mental health deteriorated following a friend's death. In 2021, he was detained under the Mental Health Act after threatening to jump from a bridge.
After being discharged from hospital, he was put on a plan for home-based treatment and care provided by a community mental health team. By October last year, Mr Dennison's mental health had deteriorated.
During an appointment with Mr Dennison on October 11 - the day before his death - a psychiatric nurse reported he appeared 'anxious, paranoid and agitated'. The inquest heard Mr Dennison stopped taking his anti-psychotic medication several months earlier.
Mr Dennison agreed to recommence his medication and an appointment was made for October 13. Later that evening he made two 999 calls and reported that he had 'stabbed himself' and was struggling.
A police officer phoned Mr Dennison and paramedics were asked to attend his home. When it emerged Mr Dennison's stab wound was 'superficial', officers concluded he did not pose an immediate risk to himself and passed the incident to the North West Ambulance Service.
An ambulance failed to attend Mr Dennison's home and he made his own way to A&E. He arrived at hospital at 6.30am, but left 15 minutes later. CCTV footage captured him shortly before he fell from the motorway bridge at around 8.35am.
The inquest heard a post-mortem concluded Mr Dennison's cause of death was 'polytrauma'. Tests revealed the presence of a metabolite of cocaine in Mr Dennison's system, suggesting he had taken the drug shortly before his death.
The inquest heard paramedics graded Mr Dennison's call as 'category three', meaning an ambulance should have arrived within two hours. Amy Griffith, who carried out a serious incident report for North West Ambulance Service, said the service was experiencing 'significant demand' at the time.
She said Mr Dennison should have received a call back when the ambulance had not arrived within two hours, but that did not happen. The inquest also heard hospital staff only realised Mr Dennison had left at 9.30am - several hours after he walked out.
Recording a narrative conclusion, senior coroner Timothy Brennand said he did not believe that Mr Dennison intended to end his life. He ruled that the cocaine Mr Dennison had taken 'exacerbated' his paranoid schizophrenia.
The coroner said that while there were a number of 'sub-optimal' elements to the care Mr Dennison received prior to his death, as well the emergency service response and monitoring at A&E, the impact of each on his death was 'unclear'. He added that it was 'not possible to evaluate what would have happened' had Mr Dennison been taken to hospital sooner.
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