Pensioner, 71, died after her husband lost his balance and fell backwards onto ... trends now
A 71-year-old woman died after her husband lost his balance and fell backwards onto her as she followed him upstairs at their Cheltenham home, an inquest has heard.
Kevin Rockett was 'wedged' on top of his injured wife Janet for between 10 to 30 minutes before he was able to get up and raise the alarm.
But by then Mrs Rockett had suffered a cardiac arrest because she was unable to breathe, the Gloucester inquest was told last week. She later died in hospital, seventeen hours after the freak incident on June 4 last year.
Mrs Rockett died from multiple organ dysfunction following a cardiac arrest and 'blunt force head, neck and chest injuries and positional asphyxia in a woman who had consumed alcohol', a forensic pathologist determined.
Police concluded that while some form of assault could not be ruled out, the post-mortem findings were consistent with Mr Rockett's explanation, the Coroner said.
Janet Rockett, 71, died after her husband lost his balance and fell backwards onto her as she followed him upstairs at their Beaumont Road, Cheltenham home, an inquest has heard
Toxicological tests showed that both Mrs Rockett and her husband had been drinking before the incident at their home on Beaumont Road, Cheltenham, said the Area Coroner Roland Wooderson.
Police called in a Home Office forensic pathologist to help with their investigation into Mr Rockett's account of what had happened, the inquest was told.
Pathologist Dr Richard Jones, in a statement, said he was called by the police on June 5 and told that Mrs Rockett was in intensive care and not expected to survive.
He said the police also told him about Mr Rockett's explanation that he had fallen backwards on the stairs and onto his wife, who was behind him.
The pathologist said when he examined Mrs Rockett's body later that day he found blunt force injuries to her head and face. She had recent rib fractures and also healing fractures of the left humerus and right wrist.
The nature and distribution of her injuries could be explained by a fall downstairs and an impact with a plastic storage box which was found broken at the foot of the stairway, he said.
Dr Jones stated that if the husband's account of the incident was correct - that he landed on his wife and was unable to get up for ten minutes while she was on the floor beneath him - that could have caused her cardiac arrest.
'This would have been due to compression of her trunk due to his body weight on top of her,' he stated.
The Coroner said further investigations,
