A woman in a powerboat was killed when she was hit by a jet ski. Jane Walker was a passenger on a rigid inflatable boat when it turned close to a water bike ridden by a 17-year-old which was jumping across its wake in the Menai Strait between Anglesey and the mainland.
At the inquest in Caernarfon in Gwynedd, Home Office pathologist Dr Brian Rodgers said that the jet ski hit Mrs Walker, of Cheadle in Staffordshire, in the collision. The 52-year-old pharmacy technician, suffered internal injuries. There was a significant head injury, as well as spinal cord damage and she died within a short time of the collision from head, neck and chest injuries.
North Wales Live reports that widower Kevin Walker said a paramedic had given his wife pain relief and she collapsed. "I’m convinced that’s when she died," he said. Mr Walker said he’d been informed that she was given morphine but his wife had a collapsed lung and the drug could suppress the respiratory system. The widower was also unhappy at how the spinal injury patient had been removed up a rough slipway.
Read more: Body found in mountain range in search for missing woman
The court heard him say he’d complained to the ambulance service and the ombudsman. However, he claimed that "nobody would listen." Dr Rodgers told the coroner's court that it was "highly likely" that Mrs Walker was going to die from her injuries "regardless of morphine". But, he also said that he couldn't ignore the potential effect of giving the pain-killer.
No evidence was heard from the ambulance service at the hearing. Senior north west Wales coroner, Katie Sutherland, opted to adjourn the inquest over concerns about the "possibility" that treatment by the ambulance service may have played some part in the death, adding: "The reasonableness of what was undertaken in terms of her care and treatment needs exploration,” the coroner declared."
A Marine Accident Investigation Branch report into the fatal collision on August 8, 2020, said the boat had changed course across the water-bike’s path. The report found: ”The accident happened because the personal watercraft was too close to Rib Tickler when jumping its wake, which left insufficient time to react when the rigid inflatable boat’s driver altered course across its path. Rib Tickler’s driver had commenced his turn without sufficiently checking astern for other craft.”
READ NEXT:
- 'Headaches and jaw pain led to my rare cancer diagnosis aged 25'
- 'I'm trying to claim an unused bit of land but a farmer has blocked me in with silage'
- The hidden war room bunker once found by one of Cardiff's busiest roundabouts
- The people who live with the M4 in their back garden
- The Swansea woman using her grief to help others after losing her four-year-old daughter
