October 21, 2007	Sunday	Shawwal 8, 1428

KINGSTON, Oct 20: Efforts to revive Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer when he was found unconscious in March were hindered by the position of his body, a doctor testified at the inquest into Woolmer’s death on Friday.

Asher Cooper was the first doctor to reach Woolmer’s room at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, where the former England player was found unconscious on March 18, a day after Pakistan were embarrassed by Ireland in a major cricket World Cup upset.

Cooper said the awkward position of the body initially prevented him from carrying out his usual resuscitation measures.

“When I went to the room, Woolmer’s head was under the toilet bowl and I could not do resuscitating exercises,” Cooper told coroner Patrick Murphy on day four of the inquest that is being held at Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston.

“I was only able to take pictures with my cellular phone camera, which I gave to the police,” he said.

Cooper added that with the help of the police, Woolmer was removed into the hall, where Cooper performed CPR and chest compression.

He continued the measures until an ambulance arrived, even though Woolmer was without a pulse and not breathing.

Woolmer was not pronounced dead until he arrived at the University of the West Indies hospital, but Cooper said there were no signs of life when Woolmer left the hotel in the ambulance.

Doctor Simone French, who attended to Woolmer on his arrival at the hospital, said further efforts were made to revive him before he was declared dead.

“After the body was taken to the hospital we put him on the cardio machine and there was no response,” she said.

Pictures taken by detective constable Dennis Forbes, who also testified, showed Woolmer lying on a stretcher at the hospital with blood on his body.

His face was stained with blood, and there was purplish discoloration on his left side. There was also a red mark on the left hip that looked in the photograph like a slash.

The cricket world was stunned in March when Jamaican police said they were treating Woolmer’s death as murder, saying he appeared to have been strangled.

Three months later, however, after three independent pathologists’ reports, a barrage of toxicology tests and interviews with hundreds of people, authorities said there had been no foul play and that Woolmer died of natural causes.

The inquest, presided over by Murphy and an 11-member jury, is to determine the cause of Woolmer’s death and whether anyone bears responsibility.

—AFP