A CORONER has reached a verdict into the death of a grandmother of four who was struck by a toilet door.

Anne Horner, aged 81, died at Salford Royal Hospital on March 25 last year about seven hours after the incident at Oak Lodge Care Home in Bury New Road, Prestwich.

The inquest at Bury and Rochdale Coroner's Court in Heywood, heard that the woman had also been involved in an almost identical incident at Oak Lodge on March 6 when a toilet door struck her head as she was sat in the bathroom.

After hearing two days of evidence, coroner Simon Nelson recorded a narrative verdict which acknowledged the fact that Mrs Horner was taking medication for cancer.

The verdict reads: “Against a background of increasing frailty and health degradation with her use of anti-coagulant therapy, the deceased died at Salford Royal Hospital from a traumatic head injury precipitated by the inadvertent impact with a toilet door, which was being opened at 5.15am, but which may have been aggravated by subsequent trauma following her collapse at 9.40am that day.”

Earlier, legal counsel representing the home had made the case that Mrs Horner could have died as a result of injuries sustained at 9.40am.

They called Dr Vaneet Khanna, a clinician with experience of treating head injuries, as a witness.

Dr Khanna pointed out that, immediately after the toilet door incident at 5.15am, Mrs Horner was showing no signs of ill health, other than rubbing her head and she was able to walk back to her bed and dress herself later on.

He said: “That surprises me. When you have significant amounts of blood in the brain, it would translate into neurological deficit.”

Dr Khanna said it was, in his view, more likely that Mrs Horner had been injured, possibly by falling to the floor, at 9.40am.

However, consultant pathologist Dr Piyala Pal, who carried out the postmortem after Mrs Horner’s death, disagreed with that opinion and said it was more likely that Mrs Horner had died after suffering a delayed response from the toilet door injuries.

Dr Pal added that the fact that Mrs Horner was taking aspirin and other drugs could have reduced her chances of recovery.