The man, later identified as 30-year-old Sandeep Annavarapu, of Carlisle Road in Slough, was treated by medics after being discovered unresponsive outside the hospital in Goodmayes – but was later pronounced dead.
Despite extensive tests, experts have been unable to find any cause of death – and it is so far not known what the Berkshire resident was doing at the hospital in the first place.
His death on February 7 was referred to the East London Coroner’s Court by Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (BHRUT) when doctors were unable to determine what had killed him.
A crowd-funding page set up to repatriate Mr Annavarapu to southern India said he “hailed from a small village” in the Prakasam region.
“He arrived in the UK in 2019, facing numerous challenges to pursue his education and create a better future for his family,” the page said.
“His greatest aspiration was to return to India, reunite with his parents and provide them with a dignified and comfortable life. Tragically, this dream remained unfulfilled.”
More than 450 people donated a collective £7,553. A message sent to the page’s creator was not answered.
Senior coroner Graeme Irvine opened an inquest into Mr Annavarapu’s death on Tuesday, June 17, after receiving the results of a post-mortem examination he had ordered in February,
“Unfortunately, the results of that autopsy were delayed due to a series of laboratory tests,” he said.
Despite those tests, the pathologist ultimately offered a provisional cause of death as “sudden adult death syndrome”.
That, said Mr Irvine, “is a diagnosis of exclusion… effectively, this means that the cause of death is unascertained.”
He ordered that the family be made “interested persons” – a legal status entitling them to examine evidence ahead of the final inquest and question any witnesses called to give evidence.
The coroner requested the family prepare a statement providing as much information as they could about “how it was that Mr Annavarapu came to be at King George Hospital and why he was so far away from his home address”.
Mr Irvine said he had received limited information so far, beyond that Mr Annavarapu “was found unresponsive in the car park at King George Hospital”.
He did not yet know “how doctors at the hospital were alerted to his presence in the car park”.
