A student who developed a ‘taste for the party lifestyle’ died after drinking an excessive amount of alcohol just days before he turned 21.

Kameron Chatwell’s body was found by his mother Micaela Owen following a night of heavy drinking at her home in Barry, South Wales, on May 19.

They had watched the Eurovision Song Contest final together the night before, drinking a bottle and a half of wine and four bottles of Desperado.

Kameron then went to his aunt’s house where he was living but was returned to his mum’s when he fell asleep and could not give his full address to a taxi driver.

Micaela said: ‘When we got inside we decided to leave him in the hallway because we couldn’t carry him. I put him into the recovery position and put a pillow behind his head in case he vomited.

‘He was fast asleep and was snoring which was very normal for him. I assumed he was just drunk and snoring. I’d seem him fast asleep and snoring after drinking millions of times.

‘I slept on the sofa in the room next door and I could hear him snoring. I fell asleep at about 4am. When I woke up the next morning it was something past eight and I realised straight away that I couldn’t hear him snoring.

‘I went to look and knew straightaway that something wasn’t right. His skin had changed – it looked blue.

‘I was checking for a pulse but I couldn’t find one. I put my hands on his chest to feel for him breathing in and out and I couldn’t feel anything.

‘I ran upstairs to get my partner and dialled 999. They told me to begin CPR and my partner ran to go and find a defibrillator.’

Paramedics found him in cardiac arrest and he was rushed to Swansea Hospital but died later that day.

Micaela said he started drinking heavily while studying computer science at Aberystwyth University. He also started taking class A drugs and would often miss his lectures.

He went on to study media at Swansea but left after one term and started working full-time at McDonald’s.

Micaela said he continued with his party lifestyle, causing a rift in their relationship. Whenever she spoke to him about his level of drinking he would ‘walk off and ignore you’.

He moved out to live with his aunt, Tammi Owens, but the drinking and drug-taking continued.

Speaking about the night before his death, Micaela he turned up at hers just before 10pm.

She said: ‘When he arrived I didn’t smell alcohol so I didn’t think he had been drinking before he arrived. He brought a bottle of rose wine and four Desperados. He drank them and had two glasses out of my bottle. This was the first time we had drank together in about two years.

Following a post-mortem examination a pathologist gave a likely medical cause of death of ‘aspiration pneumonia with alcohol levels of 109mg per decilitre [of blood]’.

That level of alcohol is normally associated with impaired co-ordination and decreased reaction times, but was recorded several hours after he fell asleep.

Coroner Aled Gruffydd accepted the cause of death and recorded a narrative conclusion.

He said: ‘Kameron gained good GCSEs and went on to study A-levels and then went off to Aberystwyth University to study for a foundation degree in computer science. It was while living in Aberystwyth Kameron developed a taste for the party lifestyle.

‘Kameron would drink excessive amounts of alcohol and this continued when he left university.

‘Kameron died from aspiration pneumonia and alcohol toxicity. He consumed an excessive amount of alcohol during the 18th and 19th of May.’

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