A TOP hospital consultant accidentally died after injecting his foot with drugs while staying at his in-laws’ house for the night, an inquest has ruled.

Michael Davies, a consultant anaesthetist at Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, was found dead by his mother-in-law Elizabeth Ozanne at her home in The Glade, Locks Heath, on January 9.

The coroner’s court in Portsmouth heard that the 43-year-old had been out with his in-laws for a curry before he went to bed around 9.30pm.

When Mrs Ozanne went to bed, she noticed his bedroom light was still on and went to turn it off to find him face down in a pool of vomit.

An ambulance was called but he was pronounced dead by an ambulance worker at 10.30pm.

DC Julie Way, of Fratton CID, said a syringe containing a small amount of propofol – a short-acting, intravenously administered hypnotic/amnestic agent - was found next to him and there were syringe marks on his right foot.

His father-in-law Paul Ozanne said Mr Davies had been staying with them as he was due to work privately at Optical Express in Southampton the next day, something he did several times a year.

Dr Davies, of Minehead Road, Bishops Lydeard, had recently been elected a parish councillor and his wife Victoria was expecting their third child - a girl - at the time of his death.

Mr Ozanne said: “He was buoyant. He was quite a loud person socially in the nicest sense of the word.

“He was very excited that my wife’s 70th birthday had been planned and he was full of the fact that he had managed to secure a date for the arrival of Lilly and he talked about Glastonbury.”

Dr Davies had previously admitted taking propofal and cyclizine lactate - an anti-nausea drug - on two occasions in January 2005 and he was given conditions for practising which included not self-medicating.

The court heard he had become depressed around the time of his exams in 2004 but had not had any recent episodes of depression.

It was also told that he had suffered from sleep apnoea two years ago.

Post-mortem tests showed he had an anti-depressant at a therapeutic level in his system, but he had a toxic level of propofol. His family said they were unaware of his drug use.

Coroner David Horsely said: “I can safely say that he has died from an accident. Most likely that he has had a sleep problem that you were not aware of and he had a busy day the next day and he needed a nice night’s sleep.”

Mr Horsely ruled his death as an accident.