A 39-year-old woman from northeastern England tragically lost her life after an ottoman bed malfunctioned and fell on her neck, leading to asphyxiation, according to a coroner’s report released recently. Helen Davey, who operated a beauty salon, died in June while leaning over the storage compartment of a gas-lift ottoman bed.
The coroner, Jeremy Chipperfield, explained that the mattress base fell unexpectedly, trapping her neck against the bed’s side panel. She was unable to escape and ultimately died from positional asphyxia due to a defective gas-lift piston.
Davey’s daughter, Elizabeth, discovered her mother in this dire situation. In court, Elizabeth shared her harrowing experience of finding her mother lying on her back with her head trapped under the bed. She described how she tried to lift the heavy bed frame and noticed her mother’s face was blue, indicative of the distress. Despite her efforts to perform CPR, she feared her mother was already gone.
Chipperfield has since raised concerns with Britain’s business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, about the risks posed by faulty gas piston bed mechanisms, stressing that action is necessary to prevent future fatalities. Coroners in the UK are mandated to report any potential hazards they identify that could lead to future deaths.
Statistics from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) revealed that in 2022, 147 individuals died from falls involving beds, while 18 others succumbed to accidental suffocation or strangulation in bed.