Wife and mother died in her sleep
Tuesday March 09 2010
AN INQUEST was carried out last week in Carlow Coroner's Court after a 51-year-old woman, Anne Nolan, died in her sleep last September.
At the inquest, presided over by coroner Dr. Brendan Doyle, a deposition made by Mrs. Nolan's husband Eugene was read out.
It stated that the Nolans lived at St. Anne's Villas, Killeshin Road, Carlow, and that on September 6, Eugene returned home in the afternoon and made his wife tea and a snack.
He said that his wife was in bed and that later that evening, he'd checked on her and found her sleeping.
The following morning, his son John checked on his mother and then called down to Eugene, who'd been waiting for him to go to work.
It was discovered that Mrs. Nolan passed away in her sleep and that the Gardaí were called.
Pathologist Dr. Maurice Murphy carried out a postmortem examination on Mrs. Nolan and found that there'd been 'lethal levels' of painkillers in her system.
The court heard that Mrs. Nolan suffered from chronic back pain and that the painkillers may have built up in her system over a matter of time.
Dr. Murphy called her untimely death 'tragic' while he and Superintendant Pat Kavanagh extended their sincerest sympathies to the Nolan family.
