AN ELDERLY woman died after suffering a fall at her daughter’s home on Christmas Day, and then two more while she was in Basingstoke hospital.

Jean Windsor came from Torquay, in Devon, to stay with her daughter Amanda Bailey at her home in Chineham when she fell down a flight of stairs early on December 25 last year, the inquest in Alton heard.

Steven Bailey, Mrs Windsor’s son-in-law, said: “At 5.45am on Christmas Day, Amanda and I were asleep when we were awoken by a scream and a shout. There was a bump sound. We saw Jean at the bottom of the stairs in the foetal position.”

He added that Mrs Windsor had been in a confused state earlier in the night, and that she suffered from early stages of dementia but was not prone to falling over.

The inquest heard Mrs Windsor broke her wrist in the fall and was taken to Basingstoke hospital.

Notes taken by nurses revealed that Mrs Windsor was subsequently twice found by nurses on the floor by her bed on the evening of Boxing Day. The inquest heard there were no witnesses to the two falls in the acute medical unit, and that one of them left her with a cut to her nose.

That night, the inquest heard, Mrs Windsor’s condition deteriorated and she died at 8am on December 27.

A post-mortem into the 84-year-old’s death found that she had suffered bleeding in her brain, although it was unclear when this took place.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, Andrew Bradley, coroner for north east Hampshire, said it was impossible to say which fall caused the bleeding, although it was likely to be the first fall.