A 39-year-old woman in Britain tragically lost her life after an Ottoman bed malfunctioned, as stated in a coroner’s report. Helen Davey, who operated a beauty salon in northeastern England, died in June when she was leaning over the storage area of the bed. The bed, which utilizes gas-lift hydraulics for access to its storage, unexpectedly dropped its mattress platform, pinning her neck against the side panel of the bed’s base.
Coroner Jeremy Chipperfield reported that Davey was unable to free herself and succumbed to positional asphyxia. It was revealed that one of the gas-lift pistons was defective. Her daughter, Elizabeth, discovered her mother lying on her back with her head trapped under the bed. Elizabeth recounted the scene in court, explaining how she tried to lift the heavy bed off her mother and found her face discolored. Despite her efforts to perform CPR, Davey was unresponsive.
Chipperfield expressed concerns in a letter to the UK’s business secretary about the potential for future fatalities linked to similar products, stressing that the failure of gas piston bed mechanisms poses a serious risk to life. UK law mandates coroners to inform relevant authorities if they believe interventions are necessary to prevent additional deaths. Data from 2022 indicated that 147 individuals died from falling from a bed and 18 from accidental suffocation or strangulation while in bed.