A mum died after suffering “multiple injuries” when she was struck by a hay bale at a Lancashire stables, an inquest was told.
Charlotte Louise Conroy-Taylor, 45, a Lancashire County Council youth justice area manager, had just returned from holiday with her daughter Zara when the pair went to Beaumont Grange stables, Slyne-with-Hest, Lancaster, where her daughter has a horse, on Tuesday, May 31, last year.
Zara had begun “mucking out” her horse while her mother went to collect hay for the animal.
But as she was mucking out, her daughter heard a scream and found her mother lying on the ground.
Dr Nicholas Mapstone, consultant pathologist at Morecambe Bay University Hospitals Trust, told the hearing Mrs Conroy-Taylor was found with a hay bale on her ankles and another bale nearby.
She was “unconscious and not responding to requests to squeeze her hand,” he added.
An ambulance was called and attempts were made to resuscitate her in the ambulance and at the Royal Lancaster Hospital, where she was taken.
But Mrs Conroy-Taylor, of Moorside Road, Brookhouse, Lancaster, died as a result of her injuries.
Dr Mapstone told Preston coroner Dr James Adeley that he had concluded Mrs Conroy-Taylor had died as a result of “multiple injuries .”
“A number of the injuries that I saw were consistent with sudden death,” he added.
Dr Mapstone told the court he had recorded injuries to Mrs Conroy Taylor’s front left ribs and back right ribs.
She had also suffered a fracture to the lower lumbar area of her back and injuries to her chest. He believed the hay bale had fallen from around five metres and weighed around 1,000kg.
He said: “I am fairly confident that she was struck from the front because there was an imprint injury at the front just before the right side of the ribs.” He said a “square-shaped imprint” had most likely been caused by “the corner of something.”
He told the court he did not believe the injuries were survivable.
A jury of 10 was sworn in yesterday. The inquest is expected to last until next week.
(Proceeding)