A trainee nurse suffered three heart attacks and died after medics failed to correctly insert a breathing tube while she was in hospital with pancreatitis, an inquest heard.
Jodie McCann, 22, was starved of oxygen following ‘serious’ failings in her care at Queen’s Hospital in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire.
The inquest was told that the young mum-of-one had just started training as a nurse when she was admitted to hospital with gallstone pancreatitis on March 16 last year.
She suffered a cardiac arrest while undergoing treatment and was rushed to intensive care where she was placed on a ventilator.
A coroner heard how a breathing tube then became displaced on April 2 and medics struggled to reinsert it properly and establish an airway.
Jodie, of Newark, Nottinghamshire, was pronounced dead just before 6am after being deprived of oxygen and suffering two more cardiac arrests.
Coroner Elizabeth Didcock, found there had been ‘serious issues of care’ and it was likely Jodie would have lived if her breathing tube was successfully reinserted.
She said the correct equipment was also not available and there was a delay in contacting a consultant anaesthetist when Jodie’s tube was displaced.
Her family have now spoken of their heartache after the coroner ruled ‘serious omissions’ in her care contributed to her death.
Mum Sloane Warbrick, 41, said: ‘It’s almost impossible to find the words to describe our loss and what the last year has been like without Jodie.
‘Not only was she my eldest child’, she was also my best friend. It’s still difficult to try and understand how she went into hospital and never came home.
Jodie was admitted to intensive care before being transferred to Queen’s Hospital on March 22.
Six days later medics tried to bring Jodie off the ventilator but she started struggling to breathe for herself.
A decision to re-insert a breathing tube and put Jodie on a ventilator was taken.
The inquest was told that the procedure was difficult and Jodie suffered further hypoxia – where she was starved of oxygen – and trauma to her upper airway.
Medics then struggled to reinsert the breathing tube properly before Jodie tragically passed away on April 2.
The coroner recorded a narrative conclusion and found Jodie died following a prolonged cardiac arrest caused by a lack of oxygen when her breathing tube became displaced.
She said she planned on issuing a prevention of future deaths report calling on University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust, to set out what improvements it would take.
