Mum-of-two, 30 died coughing up blood and hallucinating after accidental paracetamol overdose in hospital

According to her husband, a mother who was admitted to the hospital with a “chesty cough” died a “traumatic death” after receiving an excessive amount of paracetamol.

In 2017, Laura Higginson, who is five feet one and six stone, received many doses of medicines that were excessively high for her size.

On April 19, 2017, after 10 days in a medically induced coma at Whiston Hospital in Prescot, Merseyside, the 30-year-old died of multiple organ failure.

Yesterday, the inquest in Bootle, Merseyside, was informed that the dosages were administered over the permitted limit and on three separate days.

Laura, a trainee solicitor, was extremely underweight due to a rare and dangerous genetic disorder known as Gitelman Syndrome.

Only on the fourth day did the doctors realize their error and begin administering Laura an antidote.

According to the hospital, she was not killed by the overdose.

Until his GP sent him a copy of his late wife’s post-mortem report, 48-year-old husband Antony, a former soldier, said he was unaware of the dosage error.

He reportedly remarked, “I read staggered paracetamol overdose and I was like, ‘Oh my God’,” according to an ABC story.

“My world was spinning.”

Since then, he has accused the hospital of manslaughter and reported it to the police.

Laura had arrived at the hospital on April 5 after feeling unwell and coughing up a brown substance, according to the inquest.

Her husband claimed that because of her liver and kidney problems, they had visited the hospital multiple times.

Laura’s Gitelman Syndrome required frequent magnesium and potassium injections.

It was decided to keep his wife under observation after Antony informed the court that she had gotten the first dose while he was still with her.

“She wanted to come home and I was like you re in the best place,” recalled Antony.

“I wish I d never done that.”

Laura called her husband from the hospital early on April 7 to let him know she wasn’t feeling well.

After the overdose, Antony informed the coroner that his wife had gone yellow and vomited blood.

“She said ‘My belly is distended like I’m pregnant, I’m yellow and I’m coughing up blood, and they keep making me try to drink and it’s not going down” , he stated before the inquest.

His wife was “terrified” when he arrived to the hospital.

Anthony remembered feeling “panic” and hearing shouting while he was going to the nurses’ station to get additional sick bowls.

“All sorts of doctors rushed in, all wearing scrubs,” he stated. “Laura kept saying, ‘I just came in with a chesty cough’.”

‘Saying goodbye to their mum’

According to the inquest, Laura’s condition deteriorated after being transferred to intensive care.

Her family was told she probably suffered kidney failure and sepsis.

She pulled out her tubes, started having hallucinations, and was put into an induced coma.

On April 19, Antony took their kids, Stephen and Evie, to the hospital to “say goodbye to their mum” since he knew Laura was dying.

He claimed that Stephen had remarked to a nurse, “You promised to try your hardest for my mother.”

Antony reportedly stated, “He tried to climb into bed,” according to MailOnline.

“Evie moved to the side of the bed and stroked her face while attempting to grasp her hand.

“It was traumatic.”

According to Antony, he took the kids home at three in the morning, and at six in the morning, he got a call from Laura’s mother, Denise, in the hospital, informing him that she had passed away.

An inquest was never convened, even though the coroner was notified of the death.

According to the Bootle Town Hall inquest, patients in the emergency room were not questioned their weight or weighed until they were admitted to a hospital in 2017.

Laura was still in the emergency room when her first prescription for paracetamol was written.

Laura had already gotten six doses when Rachel Brown, a young pharmacist at the time, spotted the error on April 7.

“The doses exceeded what was permitted and she was transferred into the intensive care unit on April 8,” Coroner Simon Holder stated at the beginning of the inquiry.

She received the proper antidote after it was determined that there had been an overdose, but her condition worsened until April 19.

“The central issue in this inquest is to determine whether that high dosage of paracetamol helped to cause her death.”

It is anticipated that the inquest would continue for seven days.

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