A POPULAR Falmouth man died after taking an overdose of ecstasy at a rave, an inquest in Truro heard today.

Samuel Thornton, 20, of Glasney Road, Falmouth, also known as Skinny, was out celebrating his 20th birthday with friends in Falmouth on the Saturday, October 9, 2010 before returning home to get changed to go to a rave called Pop Clique in Penryn.

He had been drinking alcohol and was said to be in high spirits by his friends, having earlier been dressed as a banana and riding on a green space hopper through the streets of the Falmouth.

After going home and getting changed he went back out and arrived at the rave in a warehouse on the Kernick Industrial Estate at around 2.30am on October 10.

At one point during the event he asked his friend James Edwards if he’d like to ‘share a line’. Mr Edwards told the inquest he took this to mean drugs.

They went outside and found a VW camper van and asked the owner if they could go inside. They agreed and once inside James drank a bottle of beer but when he asked Sam for his share of the drugs Sam told him he’d taken them all.

“I said ‘What all of it?’” said Mr Edwards “You’re nuts.” They went back into the rave but at around 5am Sam became agitated and was taken outside. He collapsed on the ground and became incoherent and was flailing his arms around. He was extremely hot and friends tried to cool him down by pouring water over him. Another friend, Ben Rochester, told the inquest in a statement that Sam’s heartbeat “was going crazy”.

An ambulance was called but paramedics had to call the police for assistance because Sam was flailing around violently and proving impossible to treat.

Truro coroner Emma Carlyon was told that the police had to put handcuffs onto his wrists and strap him onto the stretcher before he could be taken to hospital.

PC Paul Shimmon, who accompanied Mr Thornton to the hospital, told the inquest that he did not think Sam Thornton was being deliberately violent but felt it was uncontrollable and that Sam was operating in a different dimension. He was hallucinating and still seemed to think he was on the dancefloor.

Once at the hospital he was treated by the team at the A&E department but his condition rapidly deteriorated and at around 9.15am he suffered a cardiac arrest and, despite the best efforts of the medical team to revive him, he was declared dead at 10am.

Dr Hugh Jones, consultant pathologist, at the Royal Cornwall Hospital at Truro told the inquest that Sam had died “because he took ecstasy.”

Recording a verdict of accidental death Emma Carlyon said Mr Thornton had died as a result of taking ecstasy.