A man from Prestwich died after numerous types of drugs were found in his system, an inquest has heard.

Stephen Russell, 46, died at Salford Royal Hospital after being found unresponsive at his flat on Woodward Road in Prestwich.

An inquest into his death at Bolton Coroner’s Court heard how on October 20 last year he was found unresponsive in the living room of his flat, which he shared with his wife Heather.

It was heard that Stephen regularly took drugs, particularly heroin, but also others like cocaine.

Neighbour Colin Brady, who lives across the road, said that on the evening of October 20, Heather came to his front door screaming and banging, saying she needed help because Stephen had overdosed.

Mr Brady said he used to be a first responder and grabbed some medication used to treat overdose patients while Heather ran back to the flat.

When he arrived, he saw Stephen on the floor of his living room on his back.

In a statement, he said: “He was unresponsive, I thought he was dying.”

A friend Wendy Holt was also present and said to Mr Brady that he was "attention seeking" and not to touch him, however he pushed her out of the way so he could attend to Stephen.

Mr Brady started giving Stephen chest compressions and mouth to mouth while Heather called for an ambulance.

Four paramedics arrived and tried to revive Stephen before transporting him to Salford Royal Hospital.

He said that Wendy told him she had given Stephen some of her medication and that he had had heroin earlier that day.

Dr Ahmed Ali, an emergency consultant at Salford Royal Hospital, confirmed that Stephen was brought in by ambulance in cardiac arrest.

He was told he was a prolific heroin user and had collapsed and hit his head.

The ambulance arrived and started advanced life support for a possible heroin overdose, and a blood test taken revealed he had been in prolonged cardiac arrest.

Dr Usha Chandran carried out the postmortem investigation on Stephen on October 24.

She said that blood and urine samples showed numerous drugs were in his system, including cocaine, codeine, diazepam and morphine.

Dr Chandran concluded that it was combined drug toxicity which led to Stephen’s death.

He had a small head injury, which was caused by him falling to the floor when he collapsed.

Detective Chief Inspector Joanne Williams, based in Rochdale, said that when she took on the case there was the suggestion that someone else may had injected him instead, which only came to fruition three weeks after Stephen’s death.

Some accounts said that Stephen injected himself but another report suggested that Wendy may have had some involvement.

Wendy was arrested as she had a warrant for shoplifting and in an interview denied any wrongdoing or involvement in Stephen’s death.

DI Williams told the court it was one of the worst scenes she and her officers had ever been to as the flat was covered with needles.

The property had no mains electricity and it would not have been known if someone had broken into the flat due to its state so a search of the flat was not neccessary.

She said she went to the hospital and that Stephen’s body was in a poor condition and he was very thin.

Coroner John Pollard said: “He had numerous drugs in his body to different levels and types.

“Some were prescription, others were not and were all in limits that body can cope with, but together this lead to his death.”

Mr Pollard added that he does not know if he was injected by anyone else but this did not solely lead to Stephen’s death.

He said that Stephen took all of the drugs deliberately and that he took them with intent but did noy mean to end his life.

Mr Pollard recorded a conclusion of misadventure with the medical cause of death being combined drug toxicity.

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