After a fall, actor Andy Devine died of “hospital-acquired pneumonia,” according to a coroner’s report.
The 79-year-old actor, who starred in Emmerdale for ten years as Shadrach Dingle, died in January at Southport Hospital.
Sefton Senior Coroner Julie Goulding said the soap star had fallen and lain on the floor for approximately an hour because he was “unable to get up until his caretakers arrived.” He continued to decline, she claimed, “culminating in his death.”
In 2000, Devine made his Emmerdale debut as Shadrach Dingle, Chas’ father and Faith’s husband.
His character was killed off as part of an alcohol misuse storyline 10 years later, and he made a dramatic farewell to the ITV show.
Emmerdale was not his first soap, since he had previously been in Queer As Folk, Where The Heart Is, Cracker, and Prime Suspect, where he portrayed a photographer.
In the 1970s, he played a Draconian Guard in the Doctor Who series.
The actor, whose real first name was Peter, appeared to have “lost his equilibrium, culminating in a tumble,” according to Ms Goulding.
She stated, “Peter had a considerable number of major underlying clinical co-morbidities, and his health deteriorated despite all the required care and therapy, ending in his death.”
She concluded that his death was caused by “hospital-acquired pneumonia” and that it was an “accident.”
On Twitter, Liam O’Brien, who played Ethan Blake on Emmerdale for three years, said he was “heartbroken” to hear of the demise of an old friend.
“It’s much more tragic because he died in January and [I] had no idea,” he said.
Fellow Coronation Street and Hollyoaks actor Daniel Jillings tweeted that Devine was his “first theatre instructor and a brilliant one,” adding that he had been a “character both on and off-screen.”
