A COMMUNITY matron who was taking a mixture of painkillers for shoulder pain and suffered from insomnia fell into a “deep sleep” whilst driving, causing his car to veer off the road and overturn, an inquest heard.

Jonathan Brown left his work at Solent NHS Trust in Southampton on September 7, 2015, and was driving on the M3 when he lost control of his Peugeot near Micheldever.

The 30-year-old, from Black Dam, suffered with various health problems, including insomnia and shoulder pain for which he was taking painkillers including Tramadol and codeine, the inquest at Winchester Coroners’ Court heard.

Witness Jack Jacobs, who was driving in front of Mr Brown on the M3, saw the Peugeot drift onto the hard shoulder before clipping another car on the inside lane.

Mr Brown’s car then hit the crash barriers causing it to flip over, landing upside down on the embankment at around 3.43pm.

PC Edward Wilson, a forensic collision investigator, said Mr Brown made “no attempt to correct the course of the vehicle” after drifting onto the hard shoulder, suggesting he was “heavily sedated and deeply asleep at the time of the crash”.

Records showed he tried to call his mother at 3.36pm, but she did not answer the phone.

PC Wilson told the inquest that the tyres on Mr Brown’s car were “excessively worn”, but this had no relevance to the crash.

Peter Street, a forensic toxicology consultant who analysed blood and urine samples from Mr Brown, said levels of Tramadol were 1.3mg per litre, which could be “fatal” for someone not used to taking the painkiller.

He told the inquest that therapeutic levels are up to 0.8mg.

Other pain relief medication was also found in Mr Brown’s blood, which Mr Street said would contribute to him feeling sleepy, adding: “The effects of sedation would be increased, no doubt about that.”

Dr Adnan Al-Badri, a consultant pathologist, said Jonathan died from his injuries in the car crash, and said his death would have been “very fast indeed, within seconds”.

Mr Brown’s GP, Dr Radha Venkatraman, based at the Rooksdown Practice, told the inquest that she was concerned about him overdosing.

She told the inquest that Mr Brown had become “intimidating and argumentative” when she refused to prescribe him more opiate based drugs last year.

Coroner Graham Short asked: “Did you talk to him about opiate dependency?”

She replied: “I said it can cause coma and death.”

Mr Short added: “So you weren’t thinking about him driving, you were thinking about him going into a coma and dying?”

Dr Venkatraman responded: “I was worried that he was overdosing.”

Michael Kinchington, who was in a relationship with Mr Brown for nearly six years, told the inquest that Jonathan was “always in pain” and found it hard to relax and sleep.

He added: “As far as I was aware he slept the night before he died. He was in the bed when I woke up.”

Mr Short concluded that Mr Brown had become “dependent on opiates” adding: “He has trouble sleeping at night so we have to consider if he was tired at the time of day.”

He said Mr Brown “died immediately at the scene” after he fell asleep and “lost control of the car”, adding: “Jonathan Brown had fallen asleep and that was a deep level of unconsciousness caused by the Tramadol which is why he didn’t wake up when he went on the rumble strip which is designed to wake people up.”

Mr Short recorded accidental death and said Jonathan died of multiple injuries and had central nervous system depression.