A VERDICT of accidental death was recorded on a 90-year-old woman who died after a fall at a Blackburn nursing home.

Mrs Mary Ashworth, formerly of Harwood Street, Blackburn, died after hitting her head on a sideboard at the nursing home in Whalley New Road, where she had been a resident for over eight years.

Her son, Mr James Ashworth, told deputy coroner Mr Michael Singleton his mother suffered from senile dementia but, apart from a heart attack in 1996, had been physically in good health until a few weeks before her death, when she began to look frail.

Co-proprietor of the home for sufferers of Alzheimers disease, Mr James Thomson, told the inquest in Blackburn that he had seen Mrs Ashworth only half a minute before her death, sitting in a high-backed chair in the dining area.

He heard a loud bang and found her lying on the floor next to the sideboard. She was bleeding from the left side of her head. Mrs Ashworth died in Blackburn Royal Infirmary.

The cause of death was put at bronchial pneumonia caused by the fall. Pathologist Dr William Lawler said the fall could have been brought on by a mild heart attack or stroke.

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