Inquest hears of hospital ‘panic’ before mum’s death

Dr Higginson told the court his wife had received the first dose while he was still with her, and it was decided she would be kept in for monitoring.

“She wanted to come home and I was like – you’re in the best place,” he said.

“I wish I’d never done that.”

Dr Higginson said his wife had rung him on the morning of 7 April to say she did not feel well.

She said her stomach was distended “like I’m pregnant”, that her skin was yellow, and that she was coughing up blood.

“She said, ‘Something’s not right… just get here’,” Dr Higginson told the inquest.

He said he arrived at the hospital to find his wife exhausted and vomiting blood.

Dr Higginson said he had heard the shouting and sensed “panic” when he went to get more sick bowls from the nurses’ station.

The inquest heard Mrs Higginson was transferred to intensive care, where she continued to deteriorate.

Her family was told that she had suspected sepsis.

She began to hallucinate and rip out the tubes going into her body, and was put into an induced coma.

Dr Higginson said he had left his wife with her parents hours earlier so he could take their young children home.

He broke down as he described a phone call from his wife’s mother.

“I just heard this howl from her, this blood-curdling sound.

“She just burst out crying and said, ‘She’s gone’.”

The hospital carried out a post-mortem examination to try to find the source of the sepsis and issued a death certificate.

Several months later Dr Higginson went to his GP for antidepressants because he was “struggling”.

He said that during the course of the appointment he told the GP that he hadn’t seen the post-mortem report, and he was then given a copy.

“I read staggered paracetamol overdose and I was like, ‘Oh my God’,” he said.

“My world was spinning.”