A VERDICT of accidental death has been recorded on a woman who died of complications after a heart repair operation at Blackburn Royal Infirmary.

The inquest in Blackburn heard the operation to repair a damaged aorta was successful but five days later the patient, Mrs Rose Pickup, suffered a ruptured spleen which needed a second operation.

Despite apparently recovering well from the surgery, she died of a heart attack in the hospital a week later.

Consultant surgeon Mr S C Hardy told the inquest in a written report that he had never before encountered a ruptured spleen as a complication of this type of heart surgery.

He said he could only conclude that clamps used in the first operation had rubbed against the spleen causing a blister which increased in size and ruptured.

Home Office pathologist Dr William Lawler said Mrs Pickup, 54, of Schofield Street, Darwen, a retired weaver and mother of six daughters, was suffering from severe disease affecting the three main arteries to the heart.

She had suffered two heart attacks in the past plus a third large heart attack immediately before the second operation. Dr Lawler said the rupture to the spleen triggered the final heart attack which killed her, but said that because of her condition she was susceptible to a fatal heart attack at any time.

Questioned by coroner Andre Rebello, Dr Lawler said: "Individuals with such severe coronary artery disease are liable to sudden and unexpected death at any time."

Asked whether Mrs Pickup would have suffered a heart attack at that particular time but for the rupture to her spleen he added: "The balance of probabilities is that she would not have died at that time."

Dr Lawler said the first operation to repair her aorta had been successful and without this operation Mrs Pickup's quality of life would have deteriorated.

But, he added, it was impossible to say how much longer she would have lived.

The pathologist said: "It may have been only a week or a fortnight. Equally it could have been a year or more. There is no way of giving an answer to that question."

Mr Rebello recorded the cause of death as a heart attack due to a combination of heart disease and haemorrhaging caused by laceration to the spleen during the operation to insert an aortic graft.

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