A disabled man from Brandon died from Covid, a court has heard. 

Bruce Black, 55, was residing at an independent living care home when he died on October 25 last year. 

At the opening of his inquest on July 21, the court heard that during the day of his death, Mr Black- who was unable to walk and used a wheelchair – had been presenting as disorientated.  

He had also been taking morphine and smoking cannabis.  

A carer had last checked on Mr Black at 3pm and found him to be well.

However, when a carer arrived later that day for Mr Black’s usual evening visit, they found him lying on the floor. A cannabis ‘joint’ was lying beside him, the court heard. 

A postmortem was carried out and found that Mr Black had suffered acute respiratory distress syndrome caused by Covid-19.  

It also found that the levels of the drug baclofen in his system were “only just” higher than they would be expected to be. Baclofen is used to treat pain and certain types of muscle stiffness and tightness. 

His levels of duloxetine, which is a type of antidepressant were also high, however, the court heard that this was not unusual, for the drug is known for increasing after death has occurred. 

The presiding coroner was Nigel Parsley, Senior Coroner for Suffolk. He said that there was “no evidence to suggest that Mr Black intended to harm himself in any way”.

The drugs in his system, he said, would only have made a “slight” contribution to his death. 

The primary cause of Mr Black’s death was found to be Covid-19.

Mr Parsley recorded a conclusion of natural causes.