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Search forTragic student died two years after crash left her in a coma
Friday, July 11, 2008, 11:45
Sophie Hill was a front-seat passenger in a car that left the A38 at Egginton and careered into a telegraph pole on November 5, 2005.
Ms Hill suffered serious brain injuries, had her left arm amputated and needed specialist care 24 hours a day as a result.
She was transferred between hospitals in Burton, Bath and Loughborough before she died at Leicester General Hospital on December 10 last year following a chest infection.
Giving evidence during an inquest at Derby Coroner's Court yesterday, her mother, Rowena Hill, described how doctors broke the news of her daughter's injuries.
She said: “At first we had hopes that she would recover, but there would be some physical disabilities. But after a while we realised she would not.
“They told us she was badly brain-damaged and that she was not going to speak or walk again.
“They said it was going to be very difficult, that she was very susceptible to infection, and that we were not even to visit if we had colds because she would have difficulty fighting them.”
During her two-year coma, Ms Hill contracted both MRSA and clostridium difficile bugs due to her susceptibility to infection.
The day before she died, Ms Hill was admitted to hospital with a suspected chest and urinary tract infection.
Her temperature had risen to 40C, compared to the regular 37C, while at one point doctors recorded a high pulse rate of 155 beats per minute.
Collapsed veins meant medication could not be administered and a blood sample could not be taken.
A meeting was held between hospital staff and Mrs Hill to ask if she wanted doctors to try and resuscitate her daughter if she went into cardiac arrest.
Mrs Hill told how she said no, as it would “just prolong the agony”.
Doctor Robert Gregory, a consultant physician at Leicestershire General Hospital, told the inquest how Ms Hill was in a “frail and debilitated” state with a “degree of muscle wasting”.
The former Paulet High School student, of Cumberland Road, Stapenhill, had been on the way home from her 21st birthday party, held at the Blessington Carriage pub, in Derby, when the 12.30am crash took place.
She was pulled from the wreckage by a motorist who had been driving past.
An inquest in April 2006 into the death of driver James Storie, 23, a former Derbyshire police officer, heard how he was more than twice the legal alcohol limit when he lost control of the Renault convertible.
He died while his two passengers, Phil Parker and Ms Hill, who had just started the second year of a textiles degree in Derby, were seriously injured.
Pathologist Rahul Deb, who carried out the post-mortem, said Ms Hill died from bronco-pneumonia as a result of her paraplegia.
She leaves her mother, a sister, Michaela Ensor, and brothers Garry, Alex and Sam.
Coroner Michael Bird, recording a verdict of accidental death, said: “Sophie's injuries were very severe and meant she was fully dependent on others.
“Had she not been injured in the accident she would not have died in this way, at this time.”
tragedy: Sophie Hill and, left, the crash scene on the A38 the day after the accident which eventually claimed her life
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