A senior who died after waiting hours for care at the Saint John Regional Hospital in 2005 succumbed to bowel disease and likely would not have survived treatment, a pathologist confirmed Tuesday.

Dr. Kalman Protzner, who is based in Saint John and conducted an autopsy on Lillian Mullin's body, told the coroner's jury the 78-year-old Saint John woman had obvious signs of an ischemic bowel, which means her blood stopped circulating in a section of her bowel, resulting in a massive infection.

Protzner said doctors had advised him Mullin's cause of death was uncertain, and that the woman might have died from ischemic bowel or C. difficile, a bacterium that normally lives in the bowel but can be thrown out of control by antibiotic drugs.

Doctors have testified that Mullin — whose family demanded the coroner's inquest — would not have survived the ischemic bowel, but that she might have survived a C. difficile infection with drug treatment.

However, Protzner said he didn't know whether Mullin even had C. difficile because he didn't think to take a stool sample until after he had finished the autopsy. When he went back to get one, he said, the body had been moved.

Despite that, he said, taking a stool sample would not have changed his diagnosis. Protzner said the experience has changed the way he works, however. He now takes a stool sample in circumstances similar to Mullin's, even if he's certain of the cause of death.  

Mullin died one day after being sent home from the Saint John Regional Hospital emergency room with severe diarrhea and stomach cramps. Doctors diagnosed her with the flu, and told her to hydrate and come back if she didn't feel better.

Mullin's daughter brought her back to the hospital the next day, where she waited six hours to be seen by a doctor. She died an hour after being assessed.

Hospital officials have already admitted Mullin should not have been sent home from hospital the first day she arrived asking for treatment.