Scrawny, malnourished and anaemic were the words used to describe the state of a young Auckland man who died after a suspected heroin overdose.
Photo: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
The man, who cannot be named, lost consciousness in a council apartment complex in November 2013 and later died in hospital.
Friends and family have together painted a picture of the man's life in the months leading up to his death at a coronial inquest before Coroner Debra Bell this week.
One of the man's friends, who hung out with him every day, said he was an alcoholic who drank up to six litres of cask wine every day.
He said when he got a text saying the man had died, he assumed he had taken too much heroin because he previously bragged about an overdose.
"He mentioned overdosing one time. I remember that, that's the main thing I remember. He romanticised it. He said it was like the most beautiful thing that happened to him."
A close friend of the deceased said the man had told him he wasn't able to inject himself with drugs.
He told the court he heard the man's father tell an associate he was responsible for his son's death when he visited him shortly after his death.
"What I believe I heard him say was that if I hadn't blasted him up he would still be here, amongst 'it's all my fault'."
The father's lawyer Tiffany Cooper put to the friend that he had misheard the conversation but the friend insisted he was certain of what he heard.
Earlier in the day, one of the father's friends said the father told him he felt morally responsible for his son's death.
"He blamed the whole situation on his lifestyle. Having people at his place, that [his son] could get access to drugs through people he knew. I think he felt fairly responsible."
On Monday the father told the court he wished he had injected his son with the drugs, so he could have realised his son's state sooner and avoided his death.
