INQUEST.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 237, 25 February 1913, Page 2

INQUEST.

At the Courthouse yesterday, before Mr. A. Crooke, S.M., Coroner, an inquest was held concerning the death of Sarah Maria Bremian, aged 54 years, which occurred at her residence,' South road, on February 14. Senior-Sergt. Haddrell conducted the enquiry. j John Bremian, a retired farmer, deposed that deceased had been thrown out of a trap about six weeks ago and rendered unconscious. . She had frequently complained afterwards of pains in the head, and had been attended by Mr. D. S. Wylie. On February 14, at about midday, he found her lying on the floor of the bedroom. He picked her up, and she complained of a feeling of giddiness, and, she appeared sleepy, and afterwards lost consciousness. Dr. Fookes attended at once, in the absence of Mr. Wylie. but she was unconscious when the doctor arrived, and died without recovering consciousness on the same day.

To the Coroner: A few days previously, when picking some apples, deceased had received a blow from an apple, which fell and struck her in the eye. He did

not know whether deceased struck against anything in her fall in the bedroom, to injure her head.

Mr. D. S. Wylie gave evidence that.

on February 13, in response to a call, he visited deceased at her residence in

J the South Road. She complained of a ! headache, which, she said, she had been suffering from ever since a trap accid- } ent some few weeks before. She show-

| ed no signs of serious injury, and her condition was not such as to lead him to expect fata) results. She had informed him that she had received a black eye when picking apples. The following day he had a case in the country, and Dr. Fookes attended deceased for him some three hours before she died. When Dr. Fookes saw her she was deeply unconscious and partly paralysed, and she died about two hours later. He (witness.) was not able to reconcile hen sudden death with her condition on Thursday evening when he saw her. The matter was reported to the coroner, and on Sunday, the 16th inst,, he made a post mortem examination. This revealed the presence of an extensive recent hemorrhage, lying between the membranes of the brain and the brain itself. The hemorrhage was situated on the left side of the brain, and was not associated either with fracture of the skull or with any injury to the scalp. The blood-vessels inside the head were very extensively diseased, the effect of this disease being to make them abnormally brittle. The cause of the death was coma, due to pressure of blood on the brain. There were two black eyes, evidently of some days' duration, and a recent abrasion on the back of the left wrist. He attributed the rupture of the blood-vessels to the fall received on Friday morning. The trap accident had, in his opinion, nothing to do with the death of accused. Tt was the brittle nature of the bloodvessels which made her death liable through the fall received. Her death was the direct result of the fall. The Coroner said that the doctor's evidence plainly showed the cause of death, and found that death resulted from the rupture of blood-vessels in the brain, ' caused by the fall in the bedroom on ; Friday morning, February 14. '