A YOUNG man who broke his back on the holiday island of Rhodes was "left to die" in a Greek hospital, an inquest heard yesterday.

Christopher John Rochester, 24, had to wait 40 minutes for an ambulance after the 40ft fall from a rooftop apartment, his brother claimed.

He was then taken to a hospital in Rhodes Town while he was in immense pain, said Keith Rochester.

Doctors told him that Christopher would be kept in hospital overnight, but he died hours after being admitted, North Durham Coroner's Court heard.

The court was told of a catalogue of mistreatment at the hospital.

Mr Rochester, of Ullswater Road, Chester-le-Street, County Durham, had gone to Rhodes with a friend to stay with his brother, a nightclub DJ in Faliraki. He had only been on the island for four days when he fell, after a night out drinking with friends, on June 10, last year.

Keith Rochester, of the same address, said hospital staff showed no compassion as they took his brother to an x-ray room. Despite sweating profusely and asking for a drink, Christopher received no care from two nurses, he said.

Keith had to cup his hands to carry water from a drinking fountain for him.

His friend, David Vest, told the court that Christopher had screamed with pain as hospital porters crashed into doors as they took him on a stretcher to an orthopaedic ward.

Later, he was left to soil himself after a nurse refused to take him to a toilet.

Within a matter of hours he was dead. And when his brother was called to identify him, he was shown the body of an elderly woman lying on a mortuary slab, the court heard.

Keith Rochester said: ''They had him on a bed and left him to die.

''When I had to phone my mam in the morning (to tell her) that her son was dead ... I told her that he shouldn't have died in that hospital, that there had been nothing done for him and he shouldn't have died.''

The hearing continues.