Family of student who died of hypothermia believe he was dumped at roadside
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Version 0 of 1. The family of a university student who died after suffering hypothermia following a night out with friends, believe he might have been left unconscious at the side of the busy road where he was finally discovered. A coroner ruled that Ali Bunney, 20, who could have been as much as four times over the legal drink-drive limit when he left a club in Cheltenham wearing just a short-sleeved shirt, had been trying to walk home when he succumbed to the cold. But Bunney’s parents, Nigel and Marissa, said on Thursday that there were many unanswered questions. Marissa Bunney said: “I don’t believe he walked all that way. It’s a mother’s instinct. I don’t believe he walked four miles – someone has dumped him there. As a mother I believe he was dumped there unconscious, but no one believes me.” Gloucestershire coroner’s court heard that Bunney, a Cardiff University student, had been out in Cheltenham on the night of 8 February last year celebrating a friend’s 21st birthday. He ate at a friend’s house and left his hooded top and coat there when the group went to a couple of pubs and on to the Subtone nightclub. During the evening he was seen drinking pints of lager, cocktails and shots of spirits, the inquest heard. One friend said he was staggering and swaying from side to side before he vanished from the club at about 2.30am. They tried to ring him but could not get through and assumed he had taken a taxi back to his home in Gloucester, about 10 miles away. The following afternoon a dog walker found Bunney unconscious at the edge of Gloucestershire airport, four miles from the centre of Cheltenham. The temperature overnight had fallen to 4C (39F). He died later in Gloucestershire Royal hospital. The court heard that at 3.15am police received reports of a man walking along the A40 who appeared to be “swaying” like someone “struggling to walk in long grass”. Police searched the road but did not find anyone. The lead pathologist Stephen Ferryman calculated that Bunney’s blood alcohol reading for the night could have been as high as more than four times the drink-drive limit. Leo Goatley, a solicitor for the Bunney family, said Ali’s family were distressed that the death certificate indicated alcohol intoxication and had asked him if he could have made an error in his calculations. Ferryman stood by his findings. Summing up the evidence, the Gloucestershire coroner, Katy Skerrett, said: “This was a young man who had been out drinking with friends and had a very good, fun, evening. [Ali]had been drinking a significantly large amount of alcohol during the evening with his friends. “For whatever reason he chose to depart from the plans of going back to a friend’s house and it seems more likely than not that he was trying to make his way home.” She accepted medical evidence that the cause of Ali’s death was hypothermia and alcohol intoxication and concluded: “This was a tragic death. It was an alcohol-related death.” |