Despite what a coroner has today described as “maximal medical, surgical and nursing care”, O’Sullivan died on January 21, 2025.
Coroner Ian Telford’s findings say the 43-year-old’s death came as a result of an accidental fall, which was likely because of either hypoglycaemia, arising from a diabetes-related condition, or the effects of alcohol withdrawal.
Coroner Ian Telford.
A police investigation and unanswered questions
When O’Sullivan set off from his home in Welcome Bay, Tauranga, on January 5, he carried a backpack and a cross-body bag.
He was heading for the bus stop, planning to visit his girlfriend, when he was found with a head injury by a member of the public on Victory Rd in the suburb.
O’Sullivan had some ongoing struggles with alcohol addiction and had completed rehabilitation treatments, with occasional relapses.
In the lead-up to Christmas and New Year, his girlfriend had noticed an increase in his alcohol consumption and, the day before the fall, they had been texting.
O’Sullivan told her he had been experiencing some alcohol withdrawal symptoms and planned to seek some help from Community Alcohol and Drugs Services the next day.
After he was found on the road, he was taken to Tauranga Hospital, and no alcohol or drugs were detected in his system.
He’d left his home at 5pm, and CCTV footage captured him walking with a backpack heading in the direction of the bus stop, but neither the backpack nor the cross-body bag was recovered after his fall.
The findings said the police had been unable to establish the “exact circumstances” under which he sustained his head injury.
An area canvas had focused on capturing O’Sullivan’s movements, identifying any persons or vehicles of interest in the area, and attempting to find the missing backpack.
Police found that his bank cards and cellphone were not used after January 5, and they concluded there were two possible scenarios.
The first was that he suffered a fall, or falls, on the way to the bus stop, and dropped his backpack, which was picked up by someone, and not handed in to the police.
The second was that he was robbed of the backpack and suffered a fall, and injury, during the incident.
The coroner said the pathological evidence excluded blunt force injuries arising from a direct assault to the head, and found the injuries were “in keeping with a fall on to a hard surface”.
“The issue, therefore, is whether that fall occurred in the course of an unlawful altercation or was instead the result of an accidental fall. This central question understandably remains of concern to family members,” Coroner Telford said.
The coroner said he was satisfied the police conducted a thorough inquiry and, in the end, did not identify any “definitive evidence that another person was involved or responsible”.
The coroner found it relevant that there was no alcohol in his system, but on the day before his collapse, O’Sullivan had reported a “recent period of increased alcohol consumption followed by abrupt abstinence”.
“In light of his medical history, I infer that this pattern of use and sudden cessation would have placed him at a significantly heightened risk of alcohol-withdrawal-related seizures. I also note that there has been at least one prior occasion on which he sustained a fall associated with his diabetes.”
His cause of death was recorded as an intracerebral haemorrhage, with alcohol use disorder as a contributing factor, and the coroner has ruled his manner of death was accidental.
The coroner did not express a view about what happened to O’Sullivan’s belongings.
A police statement said the investigation was now closed, but investigations “can always be reopened if new evidence comes to light”.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.