A POLISH man died after taking a rare designer drug.

Lukasz Lenckowski, 35, died in hospital as a result of ethylone toxicity after being found lying in the cycle lane of a busy road.

A passing driver, Jason Sherman, spotted Mr Lenkowski lying at the side of Purbeck Avenue in Poole on the afternoon of July 16 last year. He called to him out the window as he passed.

"When he then sat up my first impression was that he was drunk," said Mr Sherman, at an inquest in Bournemouth on Friday.

"Then he got up and stumbled across and into the back of my car.

"There was traffic all around but a clear gap."

With his son in the passenger seat Mr Sherman was initially concerned as Mr Lenckowski climbed into the rear seat and footwell of his Mitsubishi Shogun, however he quickly recognised the man was ill and called an ambulance.

Among those who stopped to help were medical professionals who took Mr Lenckowski out of the car and put him in the recovery position. He was taken to Poole Hospital but died later that evening.

Reading from a pathologist's report, coroner Sheriff Payne said only a small amount of alcohol was detected in Mr Lenckowski's body, however there was evidence of amphetamine, cannabis and an anti-psychotic - clozapine - used to treat schizophrenia.

Also there was evidence of ethylone. Mr Payne said: "It has structural similarities to mephedrone but there are too few examples of its use to establish drug levels. It is related to amphetamine."

Quoting the pathologist, Mr Payne said the drug was known to cause hypertension and cardiac arrhythmia.

The court heard Mr Lenckowski's drug use was not known to his family. He moved from Poland to the UK in 2006 and lived in St Swithun's Road, Bournemouth.

The coroner ruled he died as a consequence of drug abuse.

Designer drugs are so-called as they mimic the effects of banned chemicals such as MDMA while skirting around their prohibition.