ORLANDO, Florida (2 Feb 2009) — A father of two from Sale died after cutting his toe on a piece of coral in Florida. The 59-year-old insurance clerk had been on a family holiday at Discovery Cove water park in Orlando when the accident happened. An inquest in Manchester heard that Keith, of Ravenstone Drive, had been swimming with tropical fish in a pool made to look like the sea when he stubbed his toe on living coral and caught a blood infection. He became desperately ill and after being flown back to Manchester, doctors were forced to amputate his legs. He was a haemophiliac, which causes sufferers to bleed for longer than normal if cut. Although Mr Clarke's condition was generally under control it 'complicated' the blood poisoning. Recording an accident verdict, coroner Nigel Meadows told widow Monica Clarke her husband had been "essentially unlucky". After the accident last June Keith's toe went purple and three days later he complained of an agonising pain in his shoulder as he was due to fly home. At the airport he collapsed and his nose and lips turned a 'white, waxy colour' so he was taken off the plane and rushed to Central Florida Regional Hospital. Monica noticed that his shoulder had gone a "black, morbid colour" and his back was "awash with purple swirls under the skin". The court heard he was diagnosed with septic shock and organ failure and taken into intensive care. Monica said: "Once they took him into ICU his condition appeared better because he had pain relief - but we knew by the statistics that he was gravely ill." | | Keith Clarke died after he visited Discovery Cove, an Orlando theme park that sells "hugs, kisses, rubdowns and the occasional dorsal tow or belly ride" with captive dolphins. On his return home by air ambulance Keith had his legs amputated below the knee at Wythenshawe Hospital. He was tranferred to Manchester Royal Infirmary but died from multi organ failure caused by Group B streptococcal septicaemia - eight weeks later. Mr Meadows said by "sheer coincidence" he had visited Discovery Cove. He said: "It does seem the most likely source of the infection and once it gets a grip can be difficult to treat and Mr Clarke's heamophilia wouldn't have helped." The coroner told Monica: "This is an unusual set of circumstances made all the more difficult because it starts with a happy family holiday in a safe environment then to have a trivial injury which leads to these circumstances. "If there was somebody who could be described as unlucky it would be your husband." |
