A 16-year-old who died in youth custody had been recently diagnosed with a heart condition, a coroner’s court heard today.
Eder Duarte, also known as Eder Duarte Medina, was found unresponsive in his cell at Feltham Young Offenders Institute on April 20, and died in hospital hours later.
This morning, coroner Melanie Lee opened his inquest at West London Coroners Court.
She said a post mortem had begun, but the results would not be known for several months as both toxicology and other medical tests had to be undertaken.
Among these would be tests to establish if Eder had died from his underlying heart condition, Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome.
Eder had had been diagnosed with this at West Middlesex University Hospital in December after complaining of heart palpitations, dizziness and chest pain.
However, she said it appeared no review or follow-up had happened since.
Ms Lee said she would be asking for statements from several interested parties, including Chelsea and Westminster NHS Trust, which runs West Middlesex University Hospital, and Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, which provides healthcare to Feltham inmates.
Eder had been on remand there awaiting sentencing for stabbing another teenager in Lavender Street, Brighton, last year. The hearing had been delayed pending an appeal against his conviction.
Ms Lee also gave her condolences to Eder’s parents, David and Lorena, and brother Mauricio, who attended the hearing.
Very convenient that this kid suddenly “might” have died from a heart condition a week after the initial news came out. Also interesting how there’s no mention in either of your articles of the quote from his girlfriend saying that his body had been beaten to a pulp when she went to the autopsy. No chance I’m sure of the prison covering up that failed to protect him from being murdered under their watch as the initial reports suggested.
Good to see you have some knowledge of this Francis.
WCW is well known for potentially causing sudden cardiac death. For someone that young as well, all invasive interventions would have been tried. Chest compressions done well are not gentle. IVs in both arms, drill into his leg bones for IO access. Not to mention defibrillation shocks, intubation, and looking like they’ve “been beaten to a pulp” makes sense.
Or maybe it was a cover-up; the coroner will identify if that is the case, I’m sure.
And your expertise is what Benjamin ?
Copy and paste again. Detached from the topic .
Karma
Those officers failed the kid. He had a duty of care and he didn’t deserve to die. No justice for the family either.