Greek-Cypriot Dr Jack Kerry (Kyriacou), a doctor who gave CPR to his daughter in his clinic two years ago following a heroin overdose, is on trial for treating his daughter and saving her life. He rushed to his daughter despite evidence that her friend, 43-year-old Luke Pike, who was with her at the time, and had also overdosed on heroin, was in a worse physical state than her.
Athena Kyriacou survived but Lucas Pike could not be revived and died shortly after.
Dr Kerry won’t speak publicly about what actually took place at his clinic on 4 March, 2016, after finding his daughter and her friend on his clinic’s floor but during the South Australian Coroner’s Court hearing on Thursday, the doctor was repeatedly asked to explain why he continued CPR on his daughter while she still had a pulse, despite evidence that Pike was in a worse physical state than her.
“Fatherly instinct. I went straight to my daughter,” he responded.
“You did so even though Mr Pike appeared to be in a far worse state than your daughter?” he was asked.
“Yes,” Dr Kerry responded adding that he thought that Pike had had a cardiac arrest.
“One look at him. His lips were blue…his face was a reddish hue, not moving at all. I thought he was dead.”
The court also heard that the heroin was injected by the pair’s friend Mark Campbell.
Dr Kerry denied removing evidence of the drug used from the scene (including syringes) and told the court Mark Campbell left the room with the syringe in his hand and returned less than a minute later without it.
“Fatherly instinct; I went straight to my daughter,” said Dr Jack Kerry
“I believed he was guilty of the crime – administering heroin to two innocent people,” Dr Kerry said.
In a statement to police, Dr Kerry’s daughter Athena Kyriacou, aged 30, revealed that her brother — and Dr Kerry’s only son — had previously died of a drug overdose 11 years ago.
Giving evidence on Wednesday, Ms Kyriacou said both Pike and Campbell, who passed away in 2017, were patients of her father’s and that Campbell had connections to her late brother.
Some of the questions put to Dr Kerry by Counsel assisting the coroner, Naomi Kereru, were of behalf of Pike’s father, brother and sister, who also attended the inquest that is expected to finish on Friday.
Members of the Greek and Cypriot community as well as the broader South Australian community have taken on social media to express their support towards Dr. Kerry, noting that he did “what any parent would do in a similar situation.”