Mum’s cause of death not clear, inquest finds

Teresa Cooper, 39, died in hospital on November 1, 2012 after she was found at the family home on Oxcroft Estate, Creswell.

Speaking at the Chesterfield inquest her husband, Nicholas Cooper, said on the morning she died they had been laughing and playing in bed with their two young children when he went downstairs to take a call.

“I can’t have been on the phone more than two or three minutes, because I was keen to rejoin the happiness upstairs” said Nicholas.

“Then my son ran downstairs and said ‘daddy, daddy, mum’s gone back to sleep and she won’t wake up.’

“So I ran upstairs and she was completely out of it. There was just this strange look on her face and I knew it was a very, very serious situation.”

Mrs Cooper was rushed to Chesterfield Royal Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

An inquest was initially held on September 30 2013, but adjourned without conconclusion. Reading out the pathology report given by Dr Danesh Taraporewalla at the initial inquest, assistant coroner James Newman said Mrs Cooper was in asystolic cardiac arrest when she arrived at hospital.

He also said she had a brain tumour which was operated on two years before, and for which she was being monitored.

But Ian Robertston, consultant neurosurgeon at Nottingham University Hospitals – where Mrs Cooper was treated for her tumour – told the court: “It doesn’t sound like there’s a nuerological conditon that caused her death.”

Assistant Coroner James Newman, told Monday’s inquest: “Unfortunately the cause of death is unascertainable.”

He added: “She was found unresponsive in bed and despite the best efforts of her husbands and the medical staff she passed away at Chesterfield Royal Hospital.”

He returned an open verdict for her death.

Speaking at the hearing, Nicholas Cooper, said: “We are lucky as a family as we can remember all the good, happy times we have had. We are all dealing with it very well, it has been two years since it happened and we are coping well.”