Camden News - by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS Published: 9 October 2008
Student hit by train was ‘under pressure’
A STUDENT under huge pressure at university and work lay down in front of a train and killed himself hours after being discharged from hospital, a St Pancras inquest heard on Tuesday. Deng Athian, 25, was studying at East London University when his family became concerned at a sudden change in his character and took him twice in one day to the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead.
As his family prepared to take him back to the hospital for a psychiatric assessment, Mr Athian climbed out of a bathroom window and along a garden wall at his mother’s Brassey Road home to get onto railway tracks near West Hampstead station.
Coroner Dr Andrew Reid questioned the duty psychiatrist at the Royal Free Hospital who had seen Mr Athian when his concerned family took him there by ambulance early on February 14, six hours before he died.
Senior house officer Dr Pany Petrochilus said she examined Mr Athian but saw no evidence he was a threat to himself.
He was working five days a week at Habitat in the O2 Centre in Swiss Cottage as well as trying to complete a university course.
Dr Petrochilus said: “It became increasingly apparent that his daily schedule was high pressure. I think he was worried he was going to lose his place on the course.”
Verdict: suicide