An elderly woman developed sepsis after she was scalded by tea spilled on her lap while out to lunch.
Daphne Anderson, 91, died after she sustained third degree burns over 6% of her body but didn’t immediately report it.
An inquest into her death, previously adjourned after the woman’s daughter called for the exhumation of her body for a fresh autopsy, concluded at Dublin Coroner’s Court with a narrative verdict.
Her daughter Audrey Anderson had instructed her legal team to make the court aware her preference was for a verdict of medical misadventure which she claimed was “more accurate”.
She was admitted to the Bon Secours Hospital before being transferred to the specialist burns unit at St James’s Hospital on December 3. She was treated with antibiotics and intravenous fluids and improved until December 14 when she began to deteriorate rapidly after she developed a perforated colon.
She died four days later.
Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane noted Audrey Anderson’s thoughts but returned a narrative verdict, saying: “I cannot ignore the fact of the burns, they are placed high in the sequencing of death causation.”
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Source: Irish Mirror
