A ‘FUN and family-oriented’ Basingstoke grandmother died from a bleed on the brain after falling down the stairs, an inquest has heard.

On February 12, 2021 Angela Arnold was spending the evening at home on Mullins Close, Oakridge, watching television with her husband Ray when the couple fell asleep on the sofa.

Winchester Coroner’s Court heard today (Thursday, April 15) that they awoke at around 3.30am and Angela, who was “unsteady on her feet” following a previous fall, said she needed to use the bathroom. Ray went to put the lights on, ready to help her.

However, he heard a “thud” and when he went to investigate found that Angela had fallen down the stairs. She was lying unconscious. He called 111 and an ambulance was sent, which took Angela to University Hospital Southampton.

A CT scan found that the 85-year-old had suffered a “traumatic head injury” leading to a bleed on the brain and a broken pelvis, and was also suffering from a “likely malignant mass on the chest” of which she had been unaware.

The team decided that she would not respond well to intervention, and she was cared for until she passed away on February 16.

Speaking in court, Angela’s daughter-in-law, Belinda Hearn, described her as “fun” and “family oriented”.

She said she had known her for more than 20 years, adding: “When I first started dating her son, Neil, she was very welcoming, and we had some really nice times together over the years.

“Until she got ill, she was a force to be reckoned with, very independent.”

Angela, who lived in Chiswick before moving to Basingstoke, retired early to care for her grandchildren.

However, after a fall in 2014 which required her to get a hip replacement, Belinda said Angela was “unsteady on her feet” and “quite elderly and frail”.

It is unclear why Angela was going downstairs on the night of her fall in February, as the living room is on the upper level of the house. However, to pass the bathroom she had to pass the top of the stairs, and Belinda says she may have been “tired and disoriented”, having just woken up.

Recording his verdict, area coroner Jason Pegg said: “The appropriate conclusion is one of accident. It was an accidental fall, and it seems to me that had she not suffered that fall, she would not have died when she did.”