Accident – Fatal Accident to a Visitor at Coatham

Accreditation the Redcar and Saltburn-by-the-Sea Gazette 28/07/1876

FATAL ACCIDENT TO A VISITOR
AT COATHAM

An inquest was held at the Station Hotel, Coatham on Saturday last (22/07), on view of the body of a lady named Elizabeth Ward, seventy years of age, who had died the previous day from the effects of injuries caused by falling down stairs. Deceased only came from Manchester on Wednesday (19/07), and was staying in Balmoral Terrace, Coatham. She was returning to rest alone, apparently in her usual state of health, at ten o’clock on Thursday night (20/07) her bedroom being on a short landing between the front and back staircases of the house, when she fell down the back stairs into the scullery, sustaining severe injuries to the back of the head and spine. Deceased went up the front staircase, and, as she had been subject to giddy fits, it could not be ascertained whether the accident was caused by a sudden giddiness coming over her, or by her going too far along the passage above referred to, and stepping into the well of the back staircase, the gates at the top having been left open a short time before. Dr Bennett was at once called in, but the case was a hopeless one from the first, and terminated fatally at one o’clock on Friday afternoon (21/07). Evidence having been reduced bearing out the above facts the jewellery returned a verdict of “Accidental death.”