THE death of a woman at a care home has been ruled as an accident.

Gladys Heagren died at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, in Winchester, on May 8, this year, after she suffered a fall and hit her head at Clifford House care home in Andover just days before.

An inquest on Wednesday heard how the 89-year-old was in her room on May 5 and she had taken herself to bed as she regularly did.

But at around 4.30pm staff heard a bang and rushed to the retired communication manager’s room where she was found on the floor on her left side.

Carer Angela D’aguiar told senior coroner Graham Short that Mrs Heagren was two steps away from her bed and it is believed that she was sat on her commode and may have fallen off.

Paramedics were called but it was decided that she would not go to hospital as she was concious, had no obvious bruising and staff had access to duty nurses.

The decision was questioned at the inquest by Mrs Heagren’s family but Mr Short said that he believed the widow would have not survived even if she was taken to hospital that day.

The inquest heard that on May 6 staff at the home called 111 as Mrs Heagren had become “very lethargic” and she was taken to the Winchester hospital.

A scan of Mrs Heagren’s head was carried out and doctors found she had suffered a subdural haematoma - blood outside of the brain - due to the earlier fall.

It was decided that surgery was not an option and she would be given end-of-life care as she would not recover, Dr Zeeshan Arfeen said.

Mr Short said it was not possible to determine why Mrs Heagren fell but that she had suffered an earlier urinary tract infection and was in the early stages of dementia which made her prone to falling.

He added that as she was on blood thinners it would have prevented her from clotting, which would have caused a greater bleed.

“There were no apparent significant injuries, I do however believe that the fall caused her head injury and subsequently the bleed that led to her death three days later,” Mr Short said

He deemed that Mrs Heagren’s death was accidental following the unwitnessed fall.