A fashion designer died within an hour when she su

A fashion designer died within an hour when she suffered an allergic reaction to the glue she had used to attach hair extensions, an inquest heard today.

(thurs)

Nicola Faulkner, 28, had used the American Super Hair bonding glue as she got ready for a dinner-dance.

Within minutes her scalp began itching intensely and her eyes, lips, tongue swelled up dramatically.

Fighting for breath and with a skin rash spreading over her body, Nicola gasped: ‘Where’s that damn ambulance?’ before collapsing in front of horrified boyfriend Ian Gordon.

An ambulance raced to her cousin’s home in Oaksford Avenue, Sydenham, southeast London but her lungs had collapsed and pockets of air were bubbling under the skin.

Miss Faulkner, from Kilnwood Close, Carlton, Nottingham, never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at hospital later that evening.

Southwark Coroner’s Court heard Miss Faulkner had used the Super Hair glue once before but there had been no adverse reaction.

Dr Jane Norton a pathologist from University Hospital Lewisham said the pattern was typical.

‘The first time the specified product is used there is not reaction and it is only the second time you use the product that you react severely,’ she told the hearing.

Miss Faulkner’s mother, Deloris Faulkner, wept as she told how she heard of her daughter’s tragic reaction to the latex in the glue on March 12 this year.

‘She had only left home in Nottingham at the end of June last year but had moved to London to secure work in her chosen career,’ said Mrs Faulkner.

‘On that Sunday her cousin Sandra had rung me at about 5.

30pm and she said Nicola had had an attack and that an ambulance was there and that she had no idea what was going on.

‘She told me: ‘I had fixed the extension weave on the back of her head but I left her to check on the dinner.

I was only down there for five minutes when she called me and said: ‘Please remove the bonding weave because I’m itching.

‘

‘When that was completed she said: ‘Will you ring an ambulance?’.

About five minutes later she said where’s that damn ambulance?’

Miss Faulkner had thrown open a window in desperate bid for fresh air but collapsed as she turned to talk to her cousin.

The paramedics arrived and Miss Faulkner was rushed to hospital along with a bottle of the bonding glue to show to specialists.

A pathologist from University Hospital Lewisham told the court that Miss Faulkner died from anaphylactic shock due to a latex reaction.

Coroner Mrs Selena Lynch said: ‘What a tragic case.

I am so sorry for what has happened.

This young lady had a very bad allergic reaction to some latex which was applied to the back of her head.

‘

The coroner said Miss Faulkner died in a ‘fast moving and almost violent way.

‘It overwhelmed Nicola very quickly.

I hope it is some comfort to the family to know that any suffering would have been short-lived.

‘

VERDICT: DEATH BY MISADVENTURE.

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