OPPORTUNITIES were lost to save the life of a West Somerset woman who lay bleeding to death in the garden of her home, a coroner ruled.

Sheila Anne Ginn, aged 69, suffered a traumatic injury to her left arm when she tripped and fell through her glass greenhouse, resulting in severe bleeding.

Somerset Senior Coroner Samantha Marsh conducted a full inquest hearing across two days in Wells Town Hall into the circumstances surrounding the death of retired local government officer Mrs Ginn on May 19, 2022.

Mrs Marsh heard the accident had happened just before 8 pm in the evening at Mrs Ginn’s home in East Quantoxhead and she was declared dead just over an hour later despite having made a 999 call which eventually resulted in an air ambulance attending the scene.

She said human error caused ‘multiple opportunities’ to save Mrs Ginn to be missed during the handling of the triage and escalation of the incident by emergency services staff.

Mrs Marsh pointed to sub-optimal pressure advice, an absence of tourniquet advice, a lack of escalation for clinical input, and a failure to upgrade the call to a category one incident.

The Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance was called and a helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) doctor eventually declared Mrs Ginn dead in her garden at 9.08 pm.

Mrs Marsh said: “It is, however, not possible to find on the evidence she would have survived but for human errors of judgment.

“The overwhelming severity of her injury coupled with the remoteness of her residential location put her at a significant likelihood of a fatal outcome.

“But, the missed opportunities identified have reduced her chances of survival.”

Mrs Marsh recorded a conclusion that the death of London-born Mrs Ginn (nee Tams) was ‘accidental’, caused by ‘hypovolaemic shock due to blood loss’.