Inquest Verdict Of Freak Garden Accident

Accidental Death

22/08/2008

A Gateshead man who lost his life a year after a fall in a freak garden accident left him paralysed suffered an accidental death, an inquest has ruled.

On the 10th July 2006, Ronald Allport, of Wardley in Gateshead, joined his wife Joan in the garden while building work was carried out on their house. As Mr Allport sat heavily in a deckchair, it collapsed under him, causing him to fall backwards and bang his head on a fence to which a set of ladders was attached.

He suffered a broken neck, leaving him unable to move and relying on round-the-clock care and physiotherapy. During the 12 months after the accident, Mr Allport developed several serious chest infections and he sadly died aged 62 on July 8th 2007.

At an inquest in Newcastle on Thursday, August 21st, Her Majesty's Coroner Andrew Tweddle (Darlington and South Durham/North Durham District) recorded a verdict of accidental death.

He added that the repeat chest infections Mr. Allport suffered were an inevitable consequence of the serious neck injury and the subsequent paralysis he sustained at the time of the initial accident.

Peter Wade, solicitor in Irwin Mitchell's medical law and patient's rights team, has been advising Mrs Allport in the build-up to the inquest and represented her at the Coroner's court on Thursday.

He said: "I have been working with Mrs Allport in this incredibly difficult time and I hope this verdict has given her the answers she was looking for.

"It was a terrible tragedy – Mrs Allport's husband was taken from her as a result of a million-to-one occurrence – and to compound the misery she had to watch as his condition deteriorated over the following year."