A YOUNG woman was found dead in her Poole Hospital bed just hours after undergoing a routine operation to remove her appendix, an inquest heard.

Voluntary worker Anne Galton, 23, of the Quay Foyer in Hill Street, Poole, had been admitted on March 26 last year after suffering from abdominal pain for the previous five days.

She had the operation the following afternoon and appeared to be recovering normally.

She was transferred back to Kingston Lacy ward at 5.15pm with an oxygen mask and a patient-controlled device to deliver measured amounts of pain-killing morphine. Her father, Mark, visited her that evening.

Staff nurse Hilary Hayes said Miss Galton was sitting up, talking and taking sips of water when she went off duty at 9.30pm.

Staff nurse Jean Cunningham, who took over, checked Miss Galton during the evening and took away the control for the morphine drip at 9.30pm. At 11.30pm, Miss Galton was still awake.

Mrs Cunningham decided to leave her to sleep until 2am, when the clocks were due to go forward. When she returned, she took Miss Galton's hand to place the blood pressure cuff on her arm.

"That's when I realised something was wrong," she said.

She immediately called the crash team, but Miss Galton could not be revived.

Dr Kahlid Jaber, consultant pathologist at Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester, initially attributed Miss Galton's death to cardio-respiratory arrest, but could find no obvious cause.

He sent samples to a toxicologist at Bristol.

The inquest heard that one of the blood samples showed 15 times the therapeutic level of morphine.

An investigation was carried out by police, but the only possible explanation was that the sample had been contaminated by a droplet from the morphine drip.

Pathologist Dr Sian Hughes suggested that Miss Galton was suffering from long QT Syndrome.

This is an electrical fault that can cause abnormal heart rhythm and sudden death in otherwise healthy adults.

District coroner Sheriff Payne recorded a verdict of natural causes from sudden adult death syndrome.

He added: "There's no fault by any doctors or nurses arising out of this event. She was given appropriate treatment throughout."

First published: May 12