An elderly woman choked to death on a bread roll s

An elderly woman choked to death on a bread roll she had not chewed enough, an inquest was told today.

(Thurs)

Mrs Hannah Strong, 88, collapsed in her kitchen after the food became lodged in her larynx on November 11.

A pathologist explained when people experience food going down the wrong way to morsel is usually small enough to be coughed back up.

But denture wearers often do not chew the food so well and the pieces can become harder to dislodge, Southwark Coroners Court heard.

Mrs Strong’s daughter Maryon Bjorn told the inquest they had been on a shopping trip together the day before her tragic death.

Mrs Bjorn, a local government officer of (80) Tranlands Brigg, Heelands, Milton Keynes, said:

‘She was fine.

I took her shopping to Bromley in Kent to buy a new coat.

‘She was tired, obviously as she had to keep getting in and out of her wheelchair to try on clothes.

‘

She said that her mother, who suffered from severe osteo-arthritis, had fallen out of her new bed recently, but she was not seriously hurt.

Mrs Strong was the widow of William Strong, a retired electrician.

A neighbour had called the emergency services after looking through the letter box of Mrs Strong’s home in (49) Welton Road, Plumstead, southeast London on 12 November.

PC Clifford Graham told the inquest: ‘I saw a lady lying slumped against the back door in the kitchen area with her heard slumped forwards and some false teeth on her chest at around 8am.

‘

The heating television and lights were all switched on while a plate of buttered bread rolls and a teapot had been left on a table in the lounge.

There were no signs of foul play.

Pathologist Dr Peter Jerreat explained the dangers of choking in the elderly.

‘Most people experience food going down the wrong way, but because they are small particles, we cough it up and have a choking fit.

‘The problem is with larger particles they can get lodged in the epiglottis.

‘

Mrs Strong would not have suffered for long because the blockage would set off a bodily mechanism called the vagal reflex ‘which instantaneously stops
the heart.

‘

The food contained in Mrs Strong’s stomach ‘was barely digested’, Dr Jerreat added.

‘So perhaps she hasn’t chewed her food sufficiently’.

The cause of death was impaction of food on the larynx.

Coroner Selena Lynch said Mrs Strong’s death on or after 11 November could not be classed as natural.

‘As Dr Jerreat has said, as you get older you don’t have the same ability to chew your food so easily, but it isn’t natural.

‘

Verdict: Accident.

ends