Care worker died two days after tongue piercing

A CARE worker died two days after having her tongue pierced, an inquest heard yesterday.

Amanda Taylor, 34, was diagnosed with tonsillitis after complaining of a sore throat and swollen tongue.

The inquest heard she died of blood poisoning after bacteria from the throat infection entered her blood stream through the piercing.

A coroner said Taylor, of Caerphilly, south Wales, caught tonsillitis shortly before or after having the metal bar put in her tongue.

Her sister Ceri Taylor- Dodd told the inquest in Newport, Amanda had her tongue pierced at Silverhand Jewellery in Cardiff. She said Amanda had been fit and well.

She complained of a swollen tongue the day after the piercing and the next morning saw her GP who examined her throat and prescribed antibiotics for tonsillitis.

She was visited by a friend that afternoon and wrote on Facebook that she had “severe tonsillitis and feel like crap”.

About 5.45pm her mother Lorraine found her collapsed at the home where she lived alone with her dog Bobby when she didn’t answer her phone.

In a statement read to the court, Detective Sergeant Martin Vaughan, of Gwent Police, said council officials visited the jewellery shop three times and took six pieces of equipment to be tested.

DS Vaughan said because the “micro-organisms [found] were unrelated there was insufficient evidence to take the matter forward”.

The cause of death was given as septicaemia and acute tonsillitis.

Deputy coroner for Gwent Wendy James said: “The point of entry for streptococcus into the blood stream was the hole in Ms Taylor’s tongue.”