Obsessive man who downed three litres of cola a day died after drink made his lungs swell to four times the normal weight
- Paul Inman, 30, of West Yorkshire, would also down glasses of water
- Asperger Syndrome sufferer died in sleep in flat at Haworth care home
- Parents say they used to be worried that he had a 'self-destruct button'
A man with a three-litre-a-day cola habit drank himself to death, an inquest heard yesterday.
Paul Inman, 30, of Haworth, West Yorkshire, would go out to buy the fizzy drink up to three times a day - and would also down glasses of water to quench his apparent thirst.
But the huge quantities of cola and other drinks caused his lungs to swell to four times the normal weight and the Asperger Syndrome sufferer died in his sleep, the Bradford hearing was told.
Flat: Paul Inman, 30, who lived at this care home in Haworth, West Yorkshire, would go out to buy the fizzy drink up to three times a day - and would also down glasses of water to quench his apparent thirst
Mr Inman lived in a flat at Three Sisters Care Home in Haworth, where he was found dead in his bedroom by care worker Becky Earwaker, who was checking on him one morning in March 2012.
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He was discovered face down on his bed with his glasses folded by his side, but had seemed well when staff saw him going into his room the night before. He usually locked his door but had not.
'We used to say he had a self-destruct button'
Alison Inman, Paul Inman's mother
Drinking: The huge quantities of cola and other drinks caused his lungs to swell to four times the normal weight
Detectives who went to investigate the sudden death found there were no suspicious circumstances.
Mr Inman never stayed still and care staff had to keep his cigarettes so he would not smoke 20 an hour. He would pace up and down continually and could go through two pairs of trainers a week.
When he was 17, Mr Inman was diagnosed with schizophrenia but when his case was reviewed in 2008 doctors then diagnosed that he suffered from Asperger Syndrome - a form of autism.
Six months before his death he moved to the Haworth home - where he was extremely happy, said his mother Alison Inman, who attended the hearing with his father David.
A post-mortem examination found that Mr Inman's lungs were three to four times the weight they should have been, pathologist Dr Deirdre Mckenna said.
She ruled out the cause of that being epilepsy and a heart attack and put it down instead to his excessive drinking with the root of that habit stemming from him being an Asperger sufferer.
He was already known to have had low sodium levels because of the volume of fluids that he drank.
Addressing assistant deputy Bradford Coroner Dr Domninic Bell, Mrs Inman said after hearing Dr McKenna's report: ‘I'm not a pathologist but I made that decision two hours after he died.
‘I've said all this time the cause of it was he drank excessively, absolutely excessively.
'He had done since he was ten years old. We used to say he had a self-destruct button.’
Dr Bell recorded a verdict that Mr Inman had died of natural causes.
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