'Fall led to death' (From Penarth Times)

'Fall led to death'

A 93-YEAR-OLD who was left at the wrong house by an ambulance crew fell and broke her leg - and this led to her death weeks later.

An inquest into the death of Mary Purnell heard that the crew only realised they had made a mistake when they arrived at her correct address, Fairfield Road in Penarth, where she lived with her daughter Christine Jones.

She was later found lying in a garden at a house in Dinas Powys.

The inquest in Cardiff was told that the widow, who had dementia, suffered a fractured femur and died some five weeks later in hospital.

On August 20, 2003 Mrs Purnell had gone to Morfa Day Unit in Barry for respite care.

At the end of the day she was collected by an ambulance crew which also had six other patients to drop at home.

Ambulanceman Roy Jeffries told the inquest that he and driver David MacAdam were given a list of names and addresses, but the list contained details of people due to travel on one of two ambulances. They said they were not told which patients would be on their vehicle.

When they arrived at the house in Dinas Powys they assumed that Mrs Purnell lived there.

The ambulance staff found a key under the front-door mat, took Mrs Purnell into the empty house and left.

They went back to Dinas Powys but only after they had dropped off the other patients. When they arrived at the house Mrs Purnell was lying in the garden, crying in pain. She was taken to hospital for surgery but died on September 29.

A post-mortem showed she died from bronchial pneumonia due to dementia, chronic lymphatic leukaemia and the fracture.

Coroner for the Cardiff and Vale, Dr Lawrence Addicott said: "Mrs Purnell died following a fracture of the femur that she sustained when she fell in the garden of a premises to which she had been returned from a day centre."

The coroner recorded a narrative verdict - one in which a chain of events have led to a person's death.

Solicitor Peter Maynard spoke for the family after the inquest.

He said: "The family are obviously very distressed by what happened. It was a series of events that clearly caused a lot of pain to the late Mrs Purnell and to the family afterwards."

He said the family, who are now considering further action, hoped that steps had been taken to prevent such an incident happening again.