A CHIPPING Campden pensioner died accidentally after he collapsed at the wheel of his car and suffered fatal injuries in the resulting crash, a coroner has ruled.
Gloucestershire Coroner Alan Crickmore said yesterday that John Williams, aged 84 suffered a ‘cardiac event,’ which caused him to come off the road and crash his BMW estate on the B4632 on September 15 last year. He died later at Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham.
The grandfather of eight, lived at Dover's Court, Buck End, In a statement John Gregory said he was driving his Mercedes van from Cheltenham to his home and turned into the road at the Toddington roundabout and was going towards Broadway.
He said he and the estate car in front were travelling at a steady speed of around 40mph.
The estate was driving steadily but suddenly steered across to the other side of the road, carried on its path, went down a ditch and into a tree, he said.
The court heard how he was taken by air ambulance to Selly Oak hospital, where he arrived in a profound coma, where tests indicated blood loss and he was taken to theatre for exploratory surgery. He subsequently died.
Recording an accidental death verdict, Coroner Mr Crickmore said he felt it was more likely than not that the pensioner suffered some kind of cardiac event.
That, he said, gave an explanation for the crash, but not the cause of his death, which he put down to the injuries of the crash.
The cause of death was put down as multiple injuries with eschemic heart disease as contributory.
Afterwards, his daughter Daphne Johnston, paid tribute to her father, who worked in industry, saying: "He was a very energetic person - always interested in everything that was going on.
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March '10 Bulletin
