Day 6. Medical experts.

Today the search for what happened, or the truth we crave, gets technical and the medical expert witness’s are brought in.

The session begins in a sombre mood as the deputy state coroner reminds the court that medical evidence can be very distressing for those who were close to the deceased. Steve Drummond is given every opportunity to excuse himself but he opts to stay and pose his questions.

The medical experts enter, 4 of them three women one man. Three are neuron & anatomical pathologists, the remaining is a Neuro surgeon, or a brain surgeon in lay language. I have to say this aspect of this inquest I was ready to experience something very harrowing and intensely emotional, in fact it rapidly descended into something verging on farce! The three pathologists 2 female 1 male really looked like they had crawled off the slab and got dressed, the brain surgeon actually looked quite alive which was a relief. Immediately Michael Wingney found a major discrepancy in their statistical analysis. This was a bit of a surprise a doctors are notorious for standing shoulder to shoulder in everything except blame. One of the pathologists pointed out that the discrepancy was due to the fact that the brain surgeon dealt only with live patients where as pathologists dealt only with dead ones, it really is too simple sometimes isn’t it. Now at this point I have to bring the worlds attention to one particular fact, God may have endowed these people with extraordinary incite intelligence and manual ability but he did not endow them with vocal chords sufficient for the average 19 century court room.

Over the next five hours I craned my ears to hear every word they said and all of it lengthy medical terminology of which I had no known point of reference. It was like finding myself reporting a trial in Iran with no interpreter. There were endless discussions on Aneurisms, sub arachnoid haemorrhages, vertical arterial tears. What type are there, those spontaneous (just happen due to congenital abnormality) those caused by trauma, (blow to the head). What happens what are the signs in pre-existing conditions? It went on and on in a series of totally frustrating mumbles and whispers. Having said that what was very clear was that all you boys who happen to fancy a bit of biff after a beer on a Saturday night, be warned! One punch in the right place at really quite a low velocity can have fatal consequences.

The reason I have been so flip on this piece is that at the end of the day these experts did not leave any stone unturned telling us the exact details of how death by sub-arachnoid haemorrhage comes about. They covered its speed its velocity, its type, its induction, its pre-existing conditions, symptoms and ability to leave little trace of actual rupture. They described the action of a punches rotational hyper-extending blow, fast, slow, dull or sharp in sickeningly minute detail! But what they could not do, was tell the court was how it happened in this particular case; in fact it rapidly looked as though there wa s no chance of an answer unless the cranium contained an indentation into which a 5-dollar axe from Bunnings would fit with suspicious neatness.