Heart attack, not fire, killed woman

THE brave attempts of neighbours to save an elderly woman from a fire in her flat would probably have been in vain, it emerged yesterday after an inquest heard she died of a heart attack almost immediately after the blaze began from a discarded match.

Rosemary Coombes, 85, was pronounced dead at the scene after being taken from her ground floor flat at Frankfield Terrace, Summerhill South in Cork city.

Deputy Cork City Coroner Philip Comyn heard evidence that firefighters who found her lying on the bed noticed cigarette butts and matches lying around it.

The fire brigade had been called by Patrick O’Sullivan, a young man living in a third floor flat at the same address, after he was woken by a smoke alarm at around 2.45am on November.

In a statement to gardaí, he told how he and other tenants in the house tried to open the door of Ms Coombes’s flat. They kicked it in but they couldn’t go in because of the smoke.

“We went to try and get in from a window but there was too much smoke,” he said.

After firefighters with breathing apparatus removed Ms Coombes, efforts to resuscitate her in the front garden were unsuccessful.

The court heard that the deceased was a heavy smoker. Detective Garda Regina Donnelly, who technically examined the scene, concluded in a report read to court that Ms Coombes was smoking in her bed and lit the fire accidentally when she discarded a match.

“It’s my opinion that the fire was accidentally caused by her smoking in bed and being unable to get from the bed and raise the alarm,” Det Garda Donnelly’s report said.

The post-mortem report of Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster showed that there was no carbon monoxide in her blood. She concluded Ms Coombes had a heart attack either just before or just after the fire started and died extremely rapidly after it began.

Mr Comyn said it was the heart attack rather than the fire which caused her death.

“The fire was coincidental and had no bearing in her death,” he said.