Much loved care home resident's choking death was an accident - inquest
A coroner has concluded that a man with learning difficulties died as the result of an accident as he was eating at a residential care home.
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Staff and fellow residents at the High Trees Residential Home in Bishop's Castle are said to be still in shock following the death of Lee James Mayall there on September 28 last year.
Mr Mayall, who was aged 52, had been cared for at the home for the last 24 years and was a much-loved character although his autism made it difficult to control what he got hold of. The Care Quality Commission is looking into the circumstances of the death.
An inquest on Thursday was told that on September 28 Mr Mayall had managed to get into a temporary kitchen at the residential home. There he managed to get hold of food and began choking on a sausage roll.
Despite staff attending to him and the attention of medics, including an air ambulance crew, he succumbed and was confirmed deceased by paramedics at 2.40pm.
The owners of the residential home, a member of staff and Mr Mayall's brother, Wayne, attended the inquest into his death at the Coroner's Court, at Shirehall, Shrewsbury.
Born in Bromsgrove on April 7, 1971, Mr Mayall's death was the subject of a post mortem carried out by Dr Laura Potter, a consultant histopathologist.
Dr Potter found that the cause of his death had been asphyxiation due to a bollus of food in the upper airways of his body.
