More on the 2013 death of Tyson Mathews, expanding from last post… his mother posted the following to Facebook on March 27, 2018 ( https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1N3rHuKewe/ ):
My name is Kerrie Mathews; I am a Photographer and live in Newcastle. I gave birth to 3 perfect babies. A daughter and 2 sons and this is my story.
My youngest son, Tyson had ADHD and Epilepsy. He was 6’4” tall, incredibly intelligent, and thought himself invincible. He was a joy to know and was adored by all who knew him, especially his family.
In 2013 after another seizure and hospital stay, Tyson was put on a Treatment order to start on a new anti psychotic medication but this one was 100mls a month, by injection.
He hated what anti psychotics did to his mind, and so was poorly compliant with tablets.
We were not told his first injection was 250mls, or what side effects to watch for, in fact we left hospital knowing nothing about the drug. Within 2 weeks Tyson was showing serious side effects, he had dropped out of his University entrance course in which he was thriving and excelling and even though he was mathematical gifted, he couldn’t even add 2 numbers together. He had started rocking, scratching, and couldn’t drag himself out of bed.
I took him to the Mental Health Centre and as Tyson’s Doctor was away, we saw a new Doctor. He decided to inject Tyson with yet another 150mls of this drug and disregarded his side effects. That made 400mls in the first month. Then the dose was increased to 100mls 3 weekly, and yet this doctor didn’t even know Tyson. I had to trust that it would get better but his side effects worsened with every week. Tyson had no motivation to wash, to eat, or to talk. Under the treatment order we were to attend each 3 weeks to have his injection and each time Tyson was worse. His depression and anxiety was so severe that Tyson’s GP started him on an anti depressant, and hoped it would help as Tyson told her he wanted to die. She had known Tyson most of his life and he was always high and happy. She had never seen him depressed before. She told us to see his Mental Health team as she was very worried. I took Tyson to his Mental Health team 7 times in his last month of life. Each time Tyson told them he wanted to die, he didn’t think his faith in God would stop him taking his life, that he felt hopeless, that he couldn’t live like this anymore, that he felt retarded and finally, that he was willing himself to die. On the last appointment with his case worker, Tyson was still rocking and scratching and now looked 15 years older than his 30 years. He asked Tyson when he had washed last, and Tyson said “I just don’t see the point anymore, I just want to die”. The Case worker said “mate I know it feels like climbing Mt Everest just to wash but please try to have a shower” then he made us an appointment, for the next Thursday when his Doctor came back, but sent us away without help. We were both crying as we walked away and Tyson said they won’t help me mum.
I took him home and held my boy on the lounge to keep him safe. That night he told me he would take a bath, I heard the water running then panicked and ran in to find Tyson cutting his wrist with a Stanley knife. He had cut 9 times and as I took the knife as he begged me to let him die. I called 000 and tried to stop the bleeding and when the Police arrived Tyson ask would they please let him die. They assessed Tyson a serious risk and called the ambulance. They also assessed Tyson a serious suicide risk and told him, he didn’t need to die as they would take him to hospital. I was told to wait at home till I got the call that he had been admitted. I was terribly shaken but thank God that I found him in time. My daughter came and waited with me. I called about an hour later and was told they hadn’t assessed him yet and they would call me. The Risk assessment recorded what Tyson had told them. “I have had enough” “I don’t see the point anymore”, “that he felt total hopelessness, and was afraid, and that he wanted to die”. When the call came it was to tell me Tyson had been discharged. Just over one hour at the hospital before he was sent into the night alone. I was 40 minutes drive away and asked “where is he, he wants to kill himself?”, I was told “I do not know I have discharged him”. I ran to the car and drove there terrified and was so relieved that Tyson answered his phone. I found him outside the emergency department with blood already seeping through his bandages. He said they wouldn’t help me either mum.
(cont.)
(cont.)
I took him home and kept him close and the next day I took him to the Mental Health centre. He sat there bleeding on the floor and they asked “what makes you happy Tyson?” He said “Nothing anymore, I just want to die”. They told him to sit in the sun and read a newspaper(apparently distraction techniques), but offered no real help. I took my son home and said he only had to hang on for 3 more days till his Doctor came back then he would surely help us. I cared for my son and with help from his father and his best mate we didn’t leave him alone.
He wanted to spend the night with his mate and I told Tyson we had made it, and that I would pick him up in the morning to see his Doctor. Tyson didn’t answer my calls that morning and I hoped he was still asleep, but the 10 minutes drive was like a nightmare and I found my son hanging from a beam.
I rang 000 and they told me what to do. I cut him down and he hit the concrete as I had no way to hold him. I screamed as I did compressions and even though his tongue was so swollen I managed to do CPR but couldn’t make him breath.
When the Emergency services arrived they tried in vain to save Tyson. They asked when he had cut his wrist and I said 4 days ago, and the young Constable cried with me as they thought they had saved him then. They let me lay with my boy until they had to take him away.
Why isn’t the Police and Ambulance taken seriously when they assess a patient and take them to hospital? They only take the serious risks….. yet they said the patient was usually discharged quicker than they can fill out their paperwork. It is comparable to them taking a heart attack to emergency and them saying, go away now you’re not quite dead yet, come back when you are dead. They must feel so very helpless.
We all suffered terribly with grief but Shannon’s anxiety was overwhelming after losing his little brother. I was so afraid of losing him too but I didn’t know who to trust. I took him to several Private Psychiatrists who, after the initial appointment, and knowing his brother had taken his life, they said their books were full and couldn’t help him.
I remortgaged the house and Shannon agreed to 5 stays in private Hospitals to help him deal with his loss and they offered counselling & drugs but Shannon said there is no drug that can fix losing Tyson. Shannon was found hanging under his house and when the Police arrived they saw the medication he was on and said “this is the worst one”. They told me that 9 out of 10 call outs are suicide related, so something is terribly wrong.
I don’t know how my daughter copes with her grief after losing both of her brothers but her job is to teach the sick kids in hospital. Children as young as 12 are bought in with attempted suicides and she finds helping them her way of saving those we couldn’t save. She is so very dedicated and brave…… I am just a loving mother, I want no blame, and I just have an opened heart and opened arms, and much love to give. I hope to help fix what is broken in honour of all those we couldn’t save, as every death to suicide is one death too many.
Tyson left behind a Journal he put his thoughts into.
I will quote a few apt ones now.
Our purpose in life is to matter…
To count…..
To stand for something….
To have it make some difference that we lived at all….
Is it so small a thing to habe lived…to have loved…to have thought… to have done…
He also wrote…I have tried 1,000 things that don’t work, so now I am that much closer to finding something that does.
Newcastle Magistrate Robert G. Stone discussed the injections on pages 12-13 of the inquest into Tyson’s death but concluded they were “not a contributing factor”: “The three medical experts who gave evidence at the inquest expressed the opinion that the drug was unlikely to have contributed in any significant way to the development of Tyson’s depressive symptoms… I find that it was appropriate to treat Tyson with Paliperidone; it was reasonable for the treating doctor to have prescribed it and for its continuation at the time of Tyson’s death. There was no adverse evidence given by any expert that the medication was anything other than appropriate and reasonable. It was an antipsychotic drug which had been prescribed at the time of his release from hospital under the community treatment order. That hospital admission had been an involuntary admission when Tyson was very seriously ill at that stage. All the experts have agreed that it was a reasonable decision in light of Tyson’s poor compliance to take prescribed medication. I find that the drug was not a contributing factor in Tyson’s death.” Stone did not make recommendations for prevention beyond the individual case: “Recommendations: Not Made.”
Incidentally, Tyson committed suicide the same month that Narshe81, a Bluelight user from British Columbia, Canada, started the long-running “Coming off Invega Sustenna (paliperidone)” discussion – 20 days later on Nov. 27, 2013.
November 2021 – Another horrific suicide in Australia involving Invega Sustenna injections was that of Peter James Wilson, who died on November 1, 2021, aged 41 at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Murdoch, Western Australia, after dousing himself with boat fuel and setting himself on fire. He was prescribed paliperidone palmitate, receiving his first “depot loading dose of paliperidone” on October 21 and his second loading dose on October 28. On October 25 he had “expressed ‘ongoing anxiety’ about side effects from his depot medication, but other than a ‘mild fine tremor’, no obvious physical side effects were noted.” During the weekend of October 30-31, after Wilson was discharged from Graylands Hospital, his mother said that he was having trouble breathing and she was “forced to call a doctor.” She also said that “after a few days he had such bad tremors that he could not do the simplest tasks” and that these side effects “were never evident before.” According to his father, he seemed “very different” after being discharged from Graylands and was “quiet and withdrawn.” Both of Wilson’s parents, who knew him well, “attributed this to the new medication that he was on.” On November 1, his father says after he made Mr Wilson some lunch, they went into the backyard and he tried to engage his son in some gardening. However, Wilson had “no coordination” and “even the simplest thing was an extreme effort” so instead, he wandered around the backyard having a cigarette. His father said he “‘sat (Mr Wilson) down at the patio table’ before he went to the back shed for some spray. Either way, Mr Wilson’s father was only gone a matter of moments, and as he approached the tap at the back of his house he could hear a ‘roaring sound’. As he looked around the corner from the tap, Mr Wilson’s father saw to his horror that Mr Wilson was squatting in the garage, covered with flames. It appears that in the few moments he was alone, Mr Wilson went into the garage and doused himself with fuel from a jerry can labelled ‘boat fuel’, before setting himself alight.”
According to the coroner’s report, Peter had regularly complained of side effects he attributed to his “medication,” including constipation, insomnia, tremors, odd body movements, and weight gain of “approximately 20 kg.” His mother also regularly raised concerns about potential side effects. An expert report noted that his description of side effects was “consistent with akathisia.” The report also notes: “In about 2019, Mr Wilson was referred to a neurologist to investigate possible tardive dyskinesia (a drug induced movement disorder), and when his sleep was identified as an issue, he was offered a sleep study.” Source: https://www.coronerscourt.wa.gov.au/I/inquest_into_the_death_of_peter_james_wilson.aspx?uid=3955-2080-0-84
August 2025 – 35-year-old Tom Alan Bethell was found dead at The Academy, a supported living facility in Warrington, Cheshire, UK, on August 3, 2025. The medical cause of death was left ventricular hypertrophy, contributed to by the combined toxicity of three substances: paliperidone, the sedative-hypnotic zopiclone, and the anticonvulsant pregabalin. The court heard that Bethell’s last injection of paliperidone on July 22, 2025, 12 days before he was found deceased, had been the correct dose. Area Coroner Victoria Davies recorded a conclusion that Bethell’s death was due to natural causes contributed to by an accidental polydrug overdose. Source: https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/25845682.man-35-died-accidental-drug-overdose-academy/
(unclear if LAI paliperidone or oral…) January 2019 – Kori Wharehuihuinga Hussey, a 32‑year‑old New Zealand Māori woman, died between January 10–11, 2019, in what a coroner determined to be a suicide. Toxicology testing after her death identified the presence of paliperidone, but the coroner’s report did not specify whether she had been taking oral paliperidone or the injectable version (Invega Sustenna). The investigation into her death prompted a coroner’s review of the mental health services she received. Sources: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/131200870/coroner-raises-concern-about-mental-health-care-woman-received-before-ending-life; https://www.nzlii.org/nz/cases/NZCorC/2022/125.html
