A RETIRED managing director died after suffering multiple fractures in a fall at his Wrexham home.

Colin Edward Westerman, 79, was born in Manchester but had lived in the hamlet of of Bowling Bank for more than 30 years. An inquest into his death revealed that despite being diagnosed with vascular dementia, Mr Westerman had been in reasonably good health and had no major mobility issues before he fell down six or seven stairs while making his way up to bed on September 26 last year.

John Gittins, coroner for North Wales (East and Central) told the hearing at County Hall in Mold how the fall resulted in Mr Westerman breaking several bones in his body, including in his neck, shoulder, ribs and pelvis. Mr Gittins went on to say how Mr Westerman, who had been the director of a fire alarms company until his retirement, had to be airlifted to Royal Stoke University Hospital due to the seriousness of the injuries he sustained.

In a statement read to the court, Mr Westerman’s wife Mary said how the couple had been married on Easter Saturday in 1963 and went on to have two children. She said there had been no concerns about her husband’s health in the weeks before his death, and that she had been taking cups into the kitchen when she heard a bump. When she went to see what had happened, she found Mr Westerman at the foot of the stairs, still conscious but groaning, with a lump on the back of his head. She added how they waited for an hour and a half for a paramedic to arrive on the scene and a further thirty minutes for an ambulance to take him to A&E at Wrexham Maelor. After being assessed by doctors, it was decided that due to the trauma suffered in the fall, it would be in his best interests if he was airlifted to the specialist trauma hospital in Stoke. Mrs Westerman explained how her husband had shown signs of improvement the day after being flown to the special trauma unit, but how his death on September 29 had been both quick and peaceful.

Mr Gittins said the results of a post mortem examination carried had found Mr Westerman had been suffering from significant heart disease and how that undiagnosed condition, coupled with the fall down the stairs had resulted in the multiple traumatic injuries suffered and ultimately, the heart failure which had been the decisive factor in his death.

Reaching a conclusion of accidental death, Mr Gittins added how Mr Westerman “simply didn’t have the resources to deal with his injuries.”