A BLIND 99-year-old with her heart set on reaching one hundred, has died after being scolded by a cup of tea, an inquest hears.
Margaret Eluned Roberts suffered severe burns after the piping hot black tea spilled onto her at a nursing home in Anglesey, Wales.
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Today, an inquest into the elderly woman’s death heard the burn contributed to Mrs Roberts catching a chest infection.
She died roughly five weeks after the incident.
However, a senior coroner has concluded that the death was accidental.
The pensioner’s daughter has slammed Glan Rhos nursing home in a recent statement.
Linda Pritchard explained that she received a phone call soon after the incident occurred.
She said she asked “why did they give a blind lady hot black tea?”
Kate Robertson, senior coroner for north west Wales, found that Mrs Roberts died from pneumonia and cellulitis secondary to a burn.
Ms Robertson also found that old age, asthma and ischaemic heart disease were contributing factors.
Sarah Thomas, a healthcare assistant at Glan Rhos nursing home in Brynsiencyn, who handed Mrs Roberts the cup of black tea, said she knew she was registered blind.
She gave the tea to Mrs Roberts in a plastic, two-handed beaker on September 22 last year, insisting that the pensioner was very independent and “wanted to drink the cup of tea herself.”
The healthcare assistant went on to explain that she watched Mrs Roberts sip the drink through a straw in the spout then moved away.
The inquest heard, that moments later, she spilt the tea on herself at around 7pm.
Ms Thomas claims she didn’t hear a scream.
Jo Reavey, a nurse, said in a statement that she heard “Eluned shouting in an urgent tone.”
She explained that she found her “distraught with her arms raised” and the beaker “upside down” with “black tea on her trousers.”
The wound started blistering as staff frantically put cold towels on it.
An ambulance was called at 7.51pm and arrived at Glan Rhos nursing home at about 10pm.
Mrs Roberts was taken to Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor.
The wound was initially eight per cent of her body weight but after reddening reduced it was classified as four per cent.
At the hospital, the pensioner’s blisters were lanced and her wound was dressed before being discharged.
She later returned to the nursing home, however soon after, developed chest problems.
On October 7, Mrs Roberts daughter asked for her mother to be readmitted to Ysbyty Gwynedd.
Doctor Abdul Azu, a consultant physician, told the inquest her condition was not improving.
She died there on October 28, about five weeks after the scalding.
Doctor Azu is confident that the burn contributed to the chest infection and her declining health.
The coroner Mrs Robertson, said Mrs Roberts died on October 28 ‘as a result of the medical conditions which were precipitated by the burn injury sustained on her leg.’
She said the spillage had been ‘unintended and accidental’ and gave the cause of death of Mrs Roberts as an accident.
Mrs Robertson told Mrs Pritchard: ‘Mam wanted to reach 100-years-old. It would have been such a significant milestone for her and for you.’