A GROUP of friends battled to save the life of a father who had passed out on a sofa, an inquest heard.

The drama happened after Simran Singh Nandra had taken an accidental overdose, the hearing was told.

Mr Nandra had taken a cocktail of drugs and passed out on the sofa of his friend, Adam Tobin.

The first floor flat was in a squalid condition, the inquest was told. Mr Nandra was found, surrounded by beer cans, pharmaceutical packets and ash trays full of cigarette ends.

He never woke up.

His friend, Ian Flanagan said: “He had been taking non pharmaceutical valium with heroin. He did not know the strength of what he was taking. He knew it was a risk but did it anyway”

After his friends realised that the Eastleigh man had stopped breathing in the early hours of July 29, they put him in the recovery position and performed CPR until an ambulance arrived, but it was too late.

The court heard how the 36-year-old had a long history of intravenous drug use, and had a cocktail of drugs in his system when he died.

Mr Tobin who had met Mr Nandra while he was working as a forklift driver said that the pair had attempted to get off of drugs on several occasions but would often relapse.

Pathologist, Jeffery Theaker said that Mr Nandra had died of severe brain damage due to a prolonged cardiac arrest.

A toxicology found that although the levels of each opiate found in Mr Nandra’s system was not enough to kill him together, they had caused an overdose.

Assistant coroner Karen Harrold concluded that Mr Nandra’s death was drug related.