An 11-year-old girl from Devon died in what a coroner described as a “most desperately unfortunate accident” after a branch concealed in mud pierced her heart while she played with friends in Cornwall. Lilly Angel Rodgers, from Newton Abbot, was playing on the mud flats at Wacker Quay, Torpoint, when the incident occurred.
Fatal Injury During Play
The inquest, held in Truro on Monday, September 21, heard that Lilly had been playing with two friends, making starfish shapes and doing a “commando crawl” across the mud flats before sliding headfirst down a muddy bank towards a channel in the River Lynher. A concealed sharp branch or root punctured through her ribs, severing a pulmonary artery and causing her heart to stop.
The children were around 50 metres from the shore, where a bank sloped down towards the channel. The mother of the other two children had called them back into her line of sight while she and her partner prepared a barbecue. After she called them back, the three youngsters carried on playing before Lilly stood up, clutched her chest and gasped, then collapsed face down into the mud.
Rescue and Medical Response
Screams from the other children alerted the adults, and a rescue attempt began. The other children's mother and her partner tried to reach Lilly before another adult arrived and emergency services were contacted. Paramedics attended, but meaningful CPR could only be performed after the unconscious girl was airlifted from the mud flats by the coastguard search and rescue helicopter. The operation took 40 minutes to bring Lilly back to dry land. She was then transferred to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, where she was pronounced dead.
Dr James Garvican, consultant pathologist at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, conducted a post-mortem examination. He found a wound near the top of Lilly's ribcage that was 7cm deep inside her chest. He recorded the medical cause of death as “penetrating chest trauma” and said it was most probably a branch or sharp root concealed beneath the surface of the mud in the bank.
Coroner's Conclusion
Dr Garvican said: “It's extremely bad luck. Half an inch to the right and it would just have glanced off her ribcage and left a bruise and a scratch. Half an inch to the left and it may still have gone in but it would not have damaged vital organs. This was not a survivable injury.” He added that surviving such a wound would have required it to be suffered while standing directly in front of a surgeon and anaesthetist with a hospital theatre fully prepared. Lilly had most likely lost consciousness immediately and would not have been aware of any rescue efforts or CPR.
Devon and Cornwall Police confirmed there were no suspicious circumstances or third party involvement. The area of Wacker Quay where the incident occurred is owned by the Ministry of Defence but leased to the Tamar Community Trust, and no incident of this nature had occurred there in 40 years. The trust and MoD have since erected additional signage at Wacker Quay alerting visitors to hidden dangers in the mud.
Senior coroner Andrew Cox remarked that playing in the mud is the sort of thing children do, adding: “It's what I did too as a child.” He said: “Whatever Lilly fell on caused the wound found at the postmortem and resulted in her death. There was nothing suspicious. In the circumstances it was the most truly, desperately and unlikely accident. Lilly slid on a branch with a sharp point that had been covered by the mud.” He concluded the death was accidental.
