A DRUG taker suffered a heart attack and died after plunging from his first floor bedroom window while he was hallucinating.

An inquest heard how Aaron Brierley’s mother made desperate attempts to revive her son as he lay in the street yards from their home in Leicester Avenue, Horwich.

Senior coroner Jennifer Leeming was told how a lighter fuel cannister was found near the window, while toxicology tests revealed the 23-year-old had cocaine and solvents in his system. Mr Brierley’s mother, Shiralee Brierley, said she had thought her son may have taken drugs when she last saw him on the stairs at their home on the afternoon of September 30 last year.

“He didn’t look right and he seemed away with it,” she said.

She stressed: “Aaron’ s life did not centre around drugs but I know he would take drugs now and again.”

Mrs Brierley told how she had gone across the road to her daughter, Bianca’s home where a group of people were getting ready to go to a party.

But when she left again at 6.30pm she saw a woman who asked her for help after finding a man unconscious on the pavement.

“To my shock and disbelief the man was Aaron,” she said.

“I started to shout for help and started to panic. I could tell from the way he looked that it was serious.”

In a statement Bianca Brierley said: “I heard my mum scream and knew instantly something wasn’t right.”

Mrs Brierley carried out CPR on her son until paramedics arrived and rushed him to the Royal Bolton Hospital, but doctors were unable to revive him and he was declared dead at 7.15pm.

A post mortem revealed Mr Brierley had a broken foot and grazes to his elbows, hip and chest wall.

“But to my surprise I found no head or significant injuries, other than a broken foot, which would have caused his death,” said pathologist Dr Angelia Ong.

Instead, she concluded that his death was caused by cardiac arrest brought about by use of the cocaine and solvents, commonly known as ‘sudden sniffing death syndrome’.

Mrs Brierley suggested that the drugs may have resulted in her son hallucinating and causing him to fall or jump out of the window.

“The only other thing (it could be) is that it was malicious and someone could have broken in, but we’ll never know,” she added.

But Mrs Leeming was told that a police investigation had found no suspicious circumstances.

“It looks like there has been some sort of hallucinogenic effect which, for some reason or another, has caused him to go out of the window,” she said.

Police coroner’s officer Alison Park said Mr Brierley had not been depressed or in dispute with anyone else.

“He was being in good spirits with everyone,” she said. “It was clear he had a lot of friends.”

Mrs Brierley stressed: “Like any mum I would try and keep Aaron safe and out of trouble, which wasn’t always possible.

“Aaron was a good lad and a brilliant, loving son who had family at his heart.”

Mrs Leeming recorded a conclusion that Mr Brierley died from “misadventure consequent upon the misuse of solvents and drugs.”

She added: “On the evidence it is more likely than not in my view that Aaron had some form of hallucination which caused him to either jump or fall out of the window and he subsequently suffered a cardiac event as a result of the substances he had taken.”