Woman died after health issues on Dominican Republic holiday

Lesley Burns, 69, and her husband Brian, who both lived in Ramsbottom, jetted off to the Caribbean country for a two-week break at the end of January last year.

Rochdale Coroner's Court heard that on February 1, 2022 they went for lunch at around 1.30pm and found that the seating area at the venue was situated on a raised platform.

Once they finished lunch, they stood up to leave but Lesley misjudged the height of the platform and fell from it onto hard cement and concrete, which was made to look like sand.

Brian's statement read: "Two women rushed over and said they saw someone do a similar thing the week before.

"Lesley was helped onto a chair and a beach buggy was brought over before she rested for the remainder of the day."

The court heard she she was adamant she did not want medical attention, but after seven days she went to a clinic.

An x-ray was taken which showed her hip ball had severed and wasn’t connected but was still in the socket.

A doctor said that she would need a prosthetic hip however the surgery was never undertaken.

After a few days Brian said he noticed Lesley was breathing in a strange way.

He alerted a doctor and she was moved into intensive care.

She was also given medication to reduce the risk of a blood clot but this wasn’t administered until nine days after her fall.

Then, on the morning of February 10, 2022, Lesley had a heart attack and died.

An initial postmortem examination was carried out by a pathologist in the Dominican Republic and then Lesley’s body was embalmed before returning to the UK.

Consultant pathologist Dr Ganjifrockwala conducted the postmortem examination in the UK.

He said that a blood clot may have already started and the medication given wouldn’t necessarily prevent the already formed clot to dislodge.

Dr Ganjifrockwala said that conducting a postmortem examination when one has already been done made it much harder as organs are not intact and identifying different organs can be difficult.

Also, the embalming method hampered the assessment which caused him to not be able to formulate a cause of death due to him not being able to do a thorough examination.

He said that the cause of death was unascertained due to these issues.

Brian said that Lesley was a keen gardener and was a retired hairdresser.

She was an active lady, had no mobility issues and they owned a holiday home in Southport that they would go to on weekends.

Area Coroner for Manchester North, Catherine McKenna, concluded that the medical cause of Lesley’s death was a pulmonary thromboembolism, a condition from a blood clot, due to a fractured left femur.

Rochdale Coroner's Court

She also noted that due to blood thinning medication only being given 10 days after her reduced mobility may have had an effect.

Ms McKenna recorded the death as accidental and gave her deepest condolences to the family.