A coroner has released her findings into the death of a Queenstown man, more than four years after he died after being hit by a golf ball.
Photo: 123rf
Jaden Goldfinch was playing golf with a group of friends at the Frankton Golf Centre on 17 February 2018.
They were marking the birthday of one of the group and drinking beer as they played.
On only the second hole, Goldfinch and three others hit their balls into some trees and went to look for them.
As the four looked for their balls another friend noticed a yellow golf ball from the nearby driving range and hit it with the intention of driving it towards the net of the range.
"I made sure that the other three mates had my attention, so they were looking at me when I went to hit the ball over them," he told the coroner.
One of the four looking for his ball in the trees said they were about 25 metres away and he "instinctively covered my head with my arms and turned away" as he thought the shot could go anywhere.
Instead of going over the heads of the group, the ball was sliced towards a tree just as Goldfinch walked out from behind it.
It hit the 27-year-old builder in the temple and he dropped to ground.
"They all ran to Jaden who sat up and was talking. He was bleeding from a cut on the left side of his head. friend ... put some ice from one of their chilly bins in Jaden's hat and pressed it to the left side of his head where the ball had hit him. Jaden was repeatedly asking what had happened but not remembering what he was told," coroner Sue Johnson's report said.
His partner and the friend who hit the ball helped Goldfinch to his feet.
They drove him to Lakes District Hospital's emergency department.
"At first, Jaden was screaming and clutching his head. He then started to drift in and out of consciousness. [His partner] tried to keep him awake by rubbing his arms. They arrived at the hospital within five minutes and Jaden began having a seizure as he was being taken inside," the coroner said.
He arrived at the hospital at 2.38pm and, after being giving initial treatment, plans were made to transfer him to Dunedin Hospital.
As he was placed into the helicopter at 5pm, his heart rate dropped to 35 beats per minute and his blood pressure rose.
"His pupils were now both dilated and unreactive to bright light," the coroner said.
He arrived at Dunedin Hospital's intensive care unit at 6pm and was immediately taken for a CT scan of his head.
"This showed brain injuries, including a large acute subdural haemorrhage with formation of a haematoma (a pool of blood) which was between his brain and the dura, the brain's outermost covering. This was due to rupture of an artery and was consistent with the impact from the golf ball. There was also a probable acute infarct (area of necrotic tissue) of part of the left frontal lobe of his brain.
"Jaden was taken straight to the operating theatre where he underwent a decompression craniectomy (trauma flap) in which a portion of skull bone is removed to ease pressure on the brain. It also allowed the brain to be accessed so that the haematoma could be removed."
He was then taken to ICU.
Both pupils were dilated and unresponsive to light.
Goldfinch died four days later as a result of a traumatic brain injury caused by the golf ball.
No blood samples were taken as it was only after his death that the police learned the group had been drinking, so it was impossible to know if alcohol had contributed to the accident, Johnson said.
Both Goldfinch and his friend who struck the ball bore some degree of responsibility for the death, though it was an accident, the coroner said.
"It is clear from the evidence that [he] actually intended to hit the ball back to the driving range ... but it is entirely foreseeable that the ball could have hit one of them.
"It was only because of the way in which [he] sliced the ball that it did not follow the trajectory he planned. It is also entirely foreseeable that balls do not always travel straight ahead as planned; an unintended slice (as happened) can send a ball in an entirely different direction.
"I therefore find that [the friend] was partly responsible for Jaden's death by his deliberate action in hitting the ball in the direction of three people, with no regard for whether it might not go where he intended it and hit someone."
Goldfinch was risking being hit by moving ahead of the rest of the group who went looking for their balls and moving behind a tree, Johnson said.
"By doing that he would not be able to see what was happening on the fairway. As I have already stated, it is entirely foreseeable that balls do not always travel straight ahead as planned. Any unintended hook or slice by a player on the fairway can send a ball toward the side of the fairway or even onto an adjacent fairway. Jaden was already risking being hit by a ball by being at the side of the fairway forward of players on it. By going behind a tree, so that he could not see what was happening on the fairway, and then suddenly coming out from behind that tree, his risk of being hit by any stray ball increased.
"I therefore find that Jaden was partly instrumental in his own death and therefore contributed to it, although it was nowhere near as significant a contribution as I have found [his friend's] to be."
The coroner did not make any recommendations and found the death was an accident.
However, she did apologise for how long it took to complete the inquiry.
