{"id":112112,"date":"2025-10-09T22:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T22:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/112112\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T22:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T22:29:07","slug":"critically-ill-man-trapped-in-prison-lift-with-paramedics-later-died-in-hospital-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/112112\/","title":{"rendered":"Critically ill man trapped in prison lift with paramedics later died in hospital \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">A prisoner who attempted suicide in his cell was delayed getting to hospital when paramedics who were carrying him on a stretcher got trapped in an elevator at the Midlands Prison, an investigation has found.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">The 26-year-old was rushed to the Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise after the electrical fault that caused the problem was resolved, but he was pronounced dead less than 15 minutes after arrival. They had been trapped in the lift for about five minutes. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Medical intervention had already been delayed because prison staff had failed to respond to the call system activated by the inmate for 38 minutes before he was discovered unresponsive in his cell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">An investigation by the Office of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/inspector-of-prisons\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/inspector-of-prisons\/\">Inspector of Prisons<\/a> (OIP) said it appeared that the call from the inmate\u2019s cell had been accepted by someone in the office but nobody responded for over half an hour.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">The investigation report noted that the deceased had been serving cumulative sentences of just under five years at the time of his death on July 17th, 2023. He was due to be released on August 2nd, 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">His family told investigators that they did not believe he would intentionally self-harm, and his sister had spoken to him by phone on the day he died, having had no concern for his wellbeing at that time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">When cell doors were unlocked for recreation time at around 2.10pm, the deceased chose to stay in his cell to phone his brother.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">When a prison officer was unlocking doors again to allow inmates to return to their cells at around 3.30pm, he noticed a call light was flashing red. He attempted to enter the cell but there was a mattress placed against the door.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Paramedics arrived at around 3.54pm and attempted to remove the man to an ambulance on a stretcher, but became trapped in an elevator when an electrical switch tripped. They were freed after around five minutes and continued to Midlands Regional Hospital, where the man was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">The OIP recommended that a standard operating procedure should be formulated by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/irish-prison-service\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/irish-prison-service\/\">Irish Prison Service (IPS)<\/a> regarding cell call notifications, and a suicide prevention policy and strategy should be developed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A standard operating procedure should also be developed regarding the removal of incapacitated people from cells, and prison officers should be reminded of obligations to ensure that equipment is in good order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A prisoner who attempted suicide in his cell was delayed getting to hospital when paramedics who were carrying&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,39379,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-112112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-irish-prison-service","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}