AN INQUEST into the sudden death of a woman with multiple sclerosis (MS) has failed to establish a clear cause of why she died.
Lisa Thomas, 39, was found dead in the bath at her home in Speedwell Close, Woodville, by her partner, Simon Chell, on February 7.
Mr Chell told the hearing at Derby and South Derbyshire Coroner’s Court that he discovered his partner when he went to check on her.
As he entered the bathroom he found her face first in the water and immediately removed the plug to drain the water, he said.
Mr Chell then splashed water on his partner in a desperate bid to revive her before calling his son from the next room to ring for an ambulance.
The emergency operator told Mr Chell to take his partner out of the bath, prompting him to continue frantic efforts to save her life.
Paramedics arrived five minutes later but were unable to revive Miss Thomas and pronounced her dead at 8.49pm.
Pathologist Dr Andrew Hitchcock, who carried out the post mortem examination on Miss Thomas’s body, told the inquest that internal and external examinations showed no clear cause of death.
Following further tests, Dr Hitchcock gave the cause of death as ‘immersion in water linked to the deceased’s MS’.
He admitted that this was was ‘an imprecise verdict but the most likely based on the evidence available’ to him.
Mr Chell told the inquest that his partner always managed her pain and used long, hot baths to relax and relieve her symptoms.
He said: “Even though the MS had gradually got worse, she liked to use these baths, four times a week, as a way of easing the pain.
“Because she liked them hot, the baths would sometimes aggravate her illness and she would not be able to lift herself out of the bath.
“But I would always check her and we never had a problem.” The inquest was told that Miss Thomas was diagnosed with MS shortly after her son was born in 1995.
PC Jonathon Sharp, based at Swadlincote police station, told the hearing that detectives believed there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding Miss Thomas’s death.
Paul McCandless, the assistant deputy coroner for Derby and South Derbyshire, said: “All methods to make the baths as safe as possible were made and I am therefore recording a narrative verdict.”