A 40-year-old man died after taking an overdose following a long battle with depression, an inquest heard this week.

Justin Remick sadly died after taking a large number of prescription medication at his home in Chalfont St Peter on February 3 this year.

Following his overdose, Mr Remick, who was born in Florida and moved to the UK when he was six, called 999 and told the call handler he had taken a large quantity of tablets but the call handler incorrectly wrote down six tablets and assigned the call as a category three, for which an ambulance response time is 120 minutes.

The court heard that the call handler also did not make a note of other prescription drugs he had taken.

His wife Lynne said the father-of-one had suffered from depression for his entire life, and was also an alcoholic, which was made worse after he lost his job last year.

The court also heard he was not allowed unsupervised contact with his young son due to his alcohol addiction and was worried about finances due to being unemployed.

Mrs Remick said the evening before his death, her husband was “restless” because people “kept calling him”. She said he wanted to go to bed early in the evening but she told him not to as he would not sleep at night.

He eventually went to sleep at around 8pm and woke up at 8.30am the following day.

He asked his wife if she was going out swimming that day and she said she was. In her statement, she told the court Mr Remick had drank four cans of beer between 10am and 2pm, which was “not unusual”.

He also found out on social media that his aunt, who lived in America, had passed away that day, telling his wife he felt “numb” and intended to spend the afternoon watching TV.

She left to go swimming at 2.30pm and Mr Remick called 999 at 2.45pm, with the ambulance arriving at 4.22pm. He was sadly pronounced dead at 4.27pm.

Mr Remick had previously lost his father around Christmas a few years before and Mrs Remick said the month was difficult for him and that he struggled with death in general as a result.

The court also heard Mr Remick had spoken to clinical psychologist Fredrick Rabbets about feeling abandoned in his relationships and growing up with an “absent, alcoholic father”, and wanting to take his own life but the thought of his son stopping him.

Toxicologist Dr John Slaughter said if paramedics had arrived earlier the outcome of the incident could have been different but “no-one [could] say” for sure and it was difficult to ascertain whether earlier medical intervention could have save Mr Remick’s life as it was not known how long the tablets were in his system and whether they had started to metabolise.

Assistant coroner for Buckinghamshire Alison McCormick ruled a verdict of misadventure saying while Mr Remick’s actions had led to his death, she did not believe he intended to take his own life due to the 999 call he made.

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