A doctor has told an inquest that the late Keroche Heiress Tecra Mugai was still alive but not able to communicate before she left Lamu hospital for further treatment at a Nairobi hospital.
Barack Mohammed Mubarak who attended to Tecra at Lamu hospital before she was transferred to Nairobi by her family said that the patient was alert but could not communicate to them what had happened to her.
“The patient was not in a position to give her history. She was alert but not able to communicate,” Mubarak told the court.
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The doctor further informed Milimani Principal Magistrate Zainab Abdul that when Tecra arrived at Lamu hospital she had blood stains on clothes and her bedding. Mubarak added that Tecra had alcohol on her breathe.
“The ear was covered with cotton wool. I removed it and there was active bleeding. There were no external clinical findings that indicated severe head injuries,” he added.
He added that Tecra had severe alcohol intoxication with a deep cut on the ear.
Mubarak said that the deceased had a fracture of the temporal lobe.
The temporal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex. It is the lower lobe of the cortex, sitting close to ear level within the skull.
The temporal lobe is largely responsible for creating and preserving both conscious and long-term memory.
The doctor told the court that Tecra had her left temporal bone fractured. It was a linear fracture.
According to him, he received a CT scan report on April 23 at 5pm and realized that he was dealing with a very serious case.
"There was a cut on her head which does not depict a normal fall. He said the cut could have been from an external object’s impact,” the court heard.
The doctor said the temporal bone is found at the base of the skull. It concerns hearing and balancing of the body. The brain is in between the two temporal bones.
Lawyer James Orengo who is representing Tecra’s family asked whether temporal bone is hard on the human body, the doctor said it is the hardest bone in the human body.
The court also heard from a report prepared by the hospital radiologist which stated that there was a cut on Tecra’s head which cannot come from a normal fall.
The radiologist said it would have been an object with an external force.
In Lamu it was his first case as an emergency at the Lamu hospital. I was in the hospital for a week.
“From an initial assessment, it did not appear like it was a normal fall on the stairs. If it was a normal fall there would be bruises as there were no observations of the bruises,” Mubaraka said.
He said the late Tecra was in blood-stained clothes on the shoulder and that she was bleeding from the ear.
“The brain was swollen which caused internal bleeding. This showed that it was a serious issue which required surgery,” the court was told.
The doctor said the impact of the fall was very heavy according to his assessment.
Mubarak was testifying in the death inquest of Tecra who died on May 2, 2020, after allegedly falling from her apartment.
On cross-examination, lawyer Abubakar Yusuf representing Omar Lali questioned if the doctor got any history of the patient at the hospital.
Omar Lali, the boyfriend of the late Keroche Breweries heiress Tecra has since arrived at Milimani Law Court ready to testify in the inquest.
Lali is expected to testify after the court summoned him to appear in person and give his testimony in the inquest.
Lali had earlier been charged with murder but the DPP withdrew the matter to give way for an inquest to establish what exactly caused the death of Tecra.
