Young woman died from severe heart failure

Experts said 26-year-old Jenna Vickers was “severely overweight” when she collapsed in a tanning cubicle in the Tantastic salon in Bury Road, Breightmet, on Monday, September 3.

At first it was believed Miss Vickers’ death could have been linked to tanning injections she had bought online but Bolton’s assistant deputy coroner, Alison Hewitt, ruled it out at yesterday’s inquest.

Miss Vickers, from Breightmet, had been injecting herself with unlicensed tanning drug Melanotan — a synthetic hormone that encourages the production of melanin, the pigment which turns the skin brown when exposed to sunlight.

A jury at Bolton Coroners Court heard how Miss Vickers had no apparent health problems apart from headaches.

She weighed 25 stone and had a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 58. The ideal range for a person’s BMI is between 21 and 25.

The night before her death Miss Vickers had complained of chest pains to her fiancé Brian Watson but thought it was due to indigestion.

She also gave herself an injection of Melanotan in her stomach before going to bed at 10pm.

In the morning, her mother Shirley Mather gave her a lift to the tanning shop at about 9.15am.

Mrs Mather had known her daughter had been using sun beds regularly for about three months.

She told the court: “She just said she was not getting any pigment and skin tone. She said ‘I want to be brown.’ As a mother I said don’t and not to take them. But if Jenna had something in her head she would do it.”

Miss Vickers, who was described as “very bubbly” was not working at the time of her death but was happily engaged to her fiancé Mr Watson.

Reading a statement from Mrs Mathers, Ms Hewitt said: “She loved walking her dogs and had a generally happy outlook on life.”

Lisa Rourke, manager of Tantastic was working at salon the day of Miss Vickers’ death and said the 26-year-old visited the salon about three to four times a week.

Ms Rourke told the inquest how Miss Vickers had increased her time on the sunbed from six minutes to 12 minutes in the three months she had been going there.

After a brief wait for the stand-up sun bed — known as a ‘tanning cabin’ — Ms Vickers went in as normal.

Ms Rourke thought something was wrong after 15 minutes when she could not hear anything coming from cubicle surrounding the tanning cabin.

When she could not open the door, she called an ambulance.

Paramedics tried to revive Miss Vickers for 30 minutes in front of her mother but she was declared dead at the shop.

A pathologist ruled out the Melatonin injections as the cause of Miss Vickers’ death.

Dr Patrick Waugh, pathologist at the Royal Bolton Hospital, said Mrs Vickers died of severe heart failure caused by her obesity.

He added: “My findings are that she was severely overweight.”

A post-mortem examination revealed Miss Vickers had an enlarged heart and narrowed arteries caused by high cholesterol.

Dr Waugh said the severe chest pains the night before were also consistent with her heart failure the following day.

He added: "I think in this case people who are overweight are more susceptible to increased cholesterol in their blood stream, high blood pressure and diabetes."

The jury ruled Miss Vickers’ injuries as acute cardiac failure due to obesity and that she died of natural causes.

Ms Hewitt said: “I do want to thank all the witnesses who helped in this complex and difficult matter.

“And to the family, I am really sorry that this happened and that you lost Jenna in this tragic way. It truly is a tragic event and I hope some of the questions you had surrounding her death have been answered.”

Owners of the tanning website where Miss Vickers bought her Melanotan — tanninginjections.com — were given a caution as a result of the investigation into her death.

The website can no longer be found online.