Furniture in ‘old lift’ obstructed paramedic trying to get to barman from Shifnal, inquest hears
The inquest into the death of a barman from Shifnal has been told that paramedics had to wait for police and firefighters to remove furniture from a lift before they could get to him.
Former university undergraduate Cyran Stewart, who was originally from Shropshire, suffered fatal injuries when he was helping clear up after the popular Carnage student night where he worked at the Walkabout bar in Swansea city centre.
The 20-year-old was moving heavy chairs from the basement cellar to the ground floor in a service lift when the incident happened in the early hours of February 24, 2014, Swansea Coroner's Court was told.
On Thursday, paramedic David Thomas told the inquest jury he became aware of the incident via the Welsh Ambulance Service's computer system and asked to be assigned to it.
He said he arrived at the bar at 3.29am, just after the fire service and was directed to a lift which he said was "quite old" and had concertina doors.
Of the door he said: "It was slightly prised open and we could see a lone male inside wedged up against the left hand wall. The patient was firmly wedged with some furniture inside.
"We could not get in at all. It was just a very small gap.
"There were no signs of life when we were looking through the small gap."
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The inquest previously heard Mr Stewart was pinned in a vertical position between the wall of the lift and a stack of chairs and there was a delay in raising the alarm.
A staff member heard a scream at 3.18am but help was not summoned for another two minutes, with the first paramedic arriving at 3.22am.
When police arrived at 3.26am they established Mr Stewart was not responding to questions and appeared unconscious.
Mr Thomas said the fire service used mechanical jaws to prise the door open and paramedics were able to check Mr Stewart for a pulse but he did not have one.
"It was obvious the patient was in cardiac arrest," he added.
Mr Thomas said a police officer and firefighter managed to remove some of the furniture from the lift and Mr Stewart was moved to the dance floor where he and two other paramedics started advanced life support, managing to get a pulse.
He said they lost Mr Stewart's pulse again on the way to the ambulance but continued CPR and his pulse returned.
Mr Stewart was taken to Morriston Hospital in Swansea where he was sedated, paralysed and ventilated.
In a statement read to the hearing, Dr Christophe Treblanche said by February 28, 2014 he believed Mr Stewart would not survive the severe hypoxic brain injury he had suffered.
He died at 1.05pm that day.
The inquest continues.
