A 66-year-old woman in England reportedly died after falling out of the back of an ambulance, an inquest has been told.
Anita Woodford, a 66-year-old woman from Norfolk died after accidentally falling off the back of an ambulance in England, an inquest into her death has been told.
Woodford was reportedly being transported by the vehicle to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital to one of her regular dialysis treatments at the facility when the incident occurred.
According to a report by the Daily Mail, the older woman was reportedly being wheeled out of the ambulance by a member of staff when the wheelchair she was sitting in suddenly tipped over, resulting in Woodford sustaining a head injury.
A later CT head scan on the woman revealed that she had sustained head and neck injuries, with another scan then also revealing the woman had a small brain bleed.
Her condition is then said to have deteriorated over the following weeks, eventually resulting in her death in November 2021.
It is alleged that Woodford was being transported in the wrong kind of wheelchair at the time of the incident, with the ambulance assistant who was pushing her, Tracey Leigh, reportedly being fired after an internal investigation.
“I never thought in a million years this would happen,” Leigh said while giving evidence to the inquest. “We all used the hospital wheelchairs to transport patients. I had done nothing differently that day than what I had done on any other day.”
According to Dr Curtis Offiah, a consultant at the Royal London Hospital, the woman’s health situation meant that she was considered to have “a number of high-risk factors” believed to make her more susceptible to such brain bleeds.
The inquest continues.