- Leigh Holden had suffered a heart attack in March last year
- Had to go back to hospital in the July as was coughing up blood
- Was due to be discharged on July 29 and was excited to be going home
- Just hours before she was due to leave suffered major complications
- Â Despite efforts to resuscitate the telesales executive, she died that evening
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A young woman who suffered a heart attack aged 22 died just hours before she was due to be discharged.Â
Leigh Holden, 22, was in good spirits about returning home on July 29 last year, an inquest heard.
She had been admitted to the Northern General
Hospital in Sheffield after coughing up blood, having
previously suffered a major heart attack in March.
But after several days in hospital, she appeared to be recovering, her father Keith said.
Leigh Holden, 22, died four months after suffering a heart attack – on the day she was due to be discharged from hospital
‘He said: ‘She was happy as a pig in muck – she was coming home. The nurse on duty had told her she was being discharged the following morning.’
But shortly after Ms Holden’s parents left the hospital at around 8pm, she suffered major medical complications.
Despite efforts to resuscitate her, she died that evening.
Ms Holden was a qualified hair stylist but at the time of her death was working as a telesales executive for an insurance firm.
The inquest heard that after her heart attack, Ms Holden had a stent fitted to widen her artery and was on a twice-daily medication called ticagrelor.
This is designed to prevent clots from forming in blood vessels by thinning the blood.
After returning to hospital with coughing problems, she was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism – a blockage in the artery that transports blood to the lungs.
As a result of her coughing up ‘life-threatening’ amounts of blood, doctors took the decision to reduce her ticagrelor dosage, due to fears she may lose even more blood.
Ms Holden has been admitted to the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield after coughing up blood
Dr Robin Condliffe, who helped treat Ms Holden, said the decision was taken to reduce her risk of dying from blood loss – but added it did increase the chance of complications with her stent.
Earlier in the hearing, pathologist Dr Julian Burton said he had identified the cause of death as stent thrombosis – where the stent becomes blocked by a blood clot.
Dr Condliffe said he did not believe the change in medication had caused the stent thrombosis, but had ‘contributed’ to it.
Nevertheless, he felt the right treatment decisions had been taken as, had the medication not been changed, there was a strong chance Ms Holden would have died from the amount of blood she was coughing up.
‘We would have been asked the question, “Why didn’t you withhold it?’ and that would have been a harder thing to justify,’ he said.
Assistant coroner Louise Slater adjourned the inquest and said she would be giving a narrative conclusion. The hearing will resume next month.
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