An Irishman died just hours after a liposuction operation in Colombia – after he had taken cocaine.
Dublin’s Coroner’s Court heard that Pierre Christian Lawlor suffered a massive coronary shortly after undergoing liposuction in a Colombian clinic.

The 34-year-old had been ordered not to smoke or drink in the days before his operation in the city of Bogota.

But his wife Andrea Galeano admitted to the court that he had taken cocaine before having lipo and plastic surgery on his neck, nose and torso.

A tiler by trade, the Dubliner died several hours after being resuscitated from the six-hour op on September 3, 2007.

The Irish Sun reports that his wife told the court that he had taken cocaine in an Irish pub in the Colombian capital on the Saturday night before the Monday surgery.

They were in Colombia on holidays with their son Zachary, then eight months old.
Pierre met a Dutchman in the bar who supplied the drugs. His wife said he told her it was cocaine and later went to the toilet to take it.

She admitted: “I did not see him take it. He showed me a black plastic bag - I couldn’t see what was inside.”

Galeano confirmed that her husband had also taken cocaine the following morning in the bedroom of the apartment in which they were staying.

The report says that she told him not to but he reproached her, saying it was ‘his holiday’ for which he paid.

Galeano added that Pierre had taken the drug in the past in Dublin.

An initial inquest into Lawlor’s death at Dublin County Coroner’s Court returned an open verdict but this was quashed by the High Court on appeal by his family.

His father had denied that Lawlor took recreational drugs.

The court also heard that staff for Centro Colombiano de Cirugía Plástica had not replied to requests by solicitors acting on behalf of the Lawlor family to take part in the Irish inquest.

The inquest was adjourned after solicitors for the Lawlor family introduced depositions taken by the Colombian police from Galeano and clinic staff the night he died.