An inside joke about Elton John between two best friends of 30 years ended in the tragic death of a beloved mum-of-four.
Questions had surrounded the last moments of Lisa Price, following reports her body had moved after she passed away. The 38-year-old was found dead at a her home in Spring Street, Rossendale, last year.
Police later made three arrests on suspicion of murder. But as these were released without charge, Lisa's family were left questioning how their loved one had lost her life.
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An inquest held this week (June 16) at Accrington Town Hall heard Lisa and best friend Dom Farrington had spent the afternoon of Tuesday March 1 last year watching England play Ukraine at her home. The pair, who were joined at one point by Lisa's partner, continued drinking after the match with both becoming "pretty drunk" by the early evening.
Between Lisa sending a text at 8.17pm and her housemate Lewis Holding collecting a McDonald's delivery at 8.27pm, she fell down the last few steps of the stairs inside the terraced property and hit her head. Dom, who has been best friends with Lisa since they were 10, carried her onto the settee but was unable to wake her up.
Dom then put Lisa back on the floor but was unable to resuscitate her, reports LancsLive. Instead of calling 999 however, around an hour later he went to his mum's house, and told her: "I tried, I tried, honest mum, I tried my best, she died in my arms and I just left."
A 999 call was finally made at 9.57pm, around an hour and a half after Lisa collapsed, but paramedics were unable to revive her and she was pronounced dead at 11pm. Jamie Robinson, a Home Office pathologist, carried out a full post mortem which revealed that Lisa had suffered a complex fracture at the base of the skull along with swelling of the brain which were described as "very significant injuries".
Dr Robinson, who explained that such a serious injury can occur even from falling off one step, was asked if, had Lisa been taken to hospital immediately after her fall, what her chances of survival would have been. "It is a very difficult injury to treat and it would require very prompt neurosurgery and you are on a race against time," he replied.
"Controlling that brain swelling is very, very difficult and I have seen many cases of this where people have made it to hospital very quickly but they didn't survive. The odds are stacked against survival."
After Lisa's death Dom, along with Lisa's partner and housemate Lewis, were arrested on suspicion of murder. During his interview Dom answered "no comment" to all questions but during the inquest Dom explained that the on-duty solicitor had advised him not to answer any questions. The post mortem had shown signs that Lisa had been moved after her death which led to a "significant police investigation" led by Detective Chief Inspector Allen Davies who runs a team tasked with looking into the most serious and difficult homicide investigations.
During this week's hearing, Assistant Coroner Richard Taylor said to Dom: "I know you aren't terribly proud of having left Lisa there." Dom then became visibly upset and sobbed as he said: "I'm devastated. I can't believe it, I'm so sorry I left. It just destroyed me.
"It's out of character for me. I was always trying to protect her. What I did wasn't right."
Dom was then asked a series of questions by Lisa's mum Lynn Winter who said she was "struggling" to understand how Lisa, mum to Kian, Lexi, Nevaeh and Niley, came to fall. "It weren't like a massive fall but I wasn't watching her, I just heard it," he responded.
Dom described how he and Lisa would often act out George Michael's live performance of Elton John's Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me. During the former Wham! singer's rendition at Wembley in 1991, at the final show of his tour, Michael surprised the crowd by introducing Elton John to the stage midway through the song.
"She was going back up the stairs to then turn around and come down and make her appearance, like when Elton John came onstage," Dom explained. "It's something we've done a lot before when we sing it together."
Dr Robinson said that Lisa would have been "immediately unconscious" and as the bleeding within the brain builds up it causes the brain to swell and press down on the spinal cord which results in death. He concluded that Lisa had hit her head on something hard, possibly the floor or a skirting board, and gave a medical cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head with acute alcohol intoxication as a contributory factor, as it can delay efforts to break a fall or cause someone to be more unsteady on their feet.
Detectives examined Lisa's phone and, crucially, managed to recover a series of voice notes she had sent on WhatsApp in the hours leading up to her death. These revealed that she and Dom were enjoying themselves, at one point painted each other's faces and there was no animosity or arguments between them.
Assistant Coroner Richard Taylor said the inquest had been a "particularly difficult one" and returned a conclusion of accidental death. "For those who knew and loved Lisa it's very difficult to not have answers for so long," he added.
"It seems she was having a good time and there is no evidence to suggest anything other than that. In my mind there is nothing to suggest that what happened was anything other than an accident. It was a fall whose mechanism we will never be able to understand.
"We can speculate on that but as the doctor has said there is a blunt force injury to the back of her head which was very, very significant. Once that injury has occurred the outcome is poor."
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