An incident outside his hotel did not cause the heart attack of a 69-year-old visitor, Dr. John Heidingsfelder told a Coroner’s Jury during an inquest on 30 August.
Jurors were hearing evidence about the death of Edward George Pumphrey, which occurred on 4 March 2004.
Mr. Pumphrey and his wife, from Palm Beach, Florida, were staying at the Hyatt.
Queen’s Coroner Nova Hall read the statement made by Mrs. Pumphrey, who said her husband had been previously diagnosed with heart disease.
On 3 March, they went to dinner at a West Bay Road restaurant and had a good time. They walked back to Hyatt Villa 8.
‘As we entered the entrance of the Hyatt we were approached by a male with two bottles of beer and appeared to be drunk,’ Mrs. Pumphrey said.
‘He jumped at us and this frightened my husband who was telling him to get away from us because he thought the man would harm me.’
She said they caught a shuttle to their villa and watched TV a while. Then her husband started to complain of pain in his arms and he wanted to lie down. She told him not to because he had just eaten. She gave him one of his heart tablets.
Mrs. Pumphrey said she lay down for about a half hour and thought she dosed off. Then she heard her husband gasp for breath; he fell over and did not respond to her.
‘I believe the man who came at us with two bottles aggravated this because we were really scared because the person was coming at us and my husband was trying to stop him from hurting us.’
The incident ended, she explained, when they saw a member of the hotel staff. A man on a cart heard them scream and chased away the man with the bottles.
Dr. John, the government pathologist, commented on report of Dr. Nadia Williams, who had performed the autopsy.
He said Dr. Williams had found no external injury to Mr. Pumphrey. An internal examination showed that he had an enlarged heart with severe narrowing of the coronary arteries. The right coronary artery was more than 90 per cent blocked by hardening of the arteries, he said.
Dr. Williams noted a red discolouration of the muscle, which appeared to represent an acute heart attack. Death was due to acute myocardial infarction with congestive cardiac failure.
The coroner asked the relevance of the incident in relation to the autopsy report.
Dr. John replied, ‘I don’t think this incident caused his heart attack because the changes observed by Dr. Williams – the red discolouration of the muscle – usually requires several hours to be seen in someone having a heart attack.’
He added, however, that the excitement of this event may well have accelerated Mr. Pumphrey’s heart rate, which of course would not help his condition.
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