Nicola Bulley, 45, vanished on January 27 after dropping her daughters at school then taking her usual dog walk along the River Wyre in St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire.
Her phone, still connected to a work Teams call, was found on a bench overlooking the water. Her body was found in the River Wyre around a mile from the bench, on February 19.
The mum-of-two Nicola died as a result of drowning and was alive when she fell into the water, an inquest has heard.
Home Office pathologist Alison Armour, who carried out the post-mortem examination, said the evidence of water in Ms Bulley’s lungs and stomach led her to conclude the cause of death was drowning, and there was no other ‘third party’ involved in her death.
Ms Bulley’s partner, Paul Ansell, her sister Louise Cunningham and parents, Ernest and Dot Bulley, sat in the public gallery listening as Ms Armour gave evidence as the first witness during the two-day hearing at County Hall, Preston.
Summing up her findings, Ms Armour said: ‘I conclude the cause of death as drowning. The lungs themselves showed classical features we see in drownings. In my opinion Nicola Bulley was alive when she entered the water.’
Mr Thackeray said that, on the day Ms Bulley disappeared, the temperature of the water was around 4C.
The inquest was shown a video of the diver in the river during the investigation.In the clip, taken in April, he can be heard saying: ‘That would feel very very cold, almost freezing if you fell in.
‘The cold water shock would have probably taken effect and cause you to gasp for breath, cause your muscles to seize up so you can’t swim properly.’
On whether it would be possible to climb out of the river, he added: ‘No not at all… it’s very difficult to get out of the water here.’
Two breaths of water would have been a ‘lethal dose’ for Ms Bulley, an expert has told the inquest.
Professor Michael Tipton said: ‘We estimate the temperature would have been around 3 to 5C [in the River Wyre], so there would be a particularly powerful cold-shock response.
‘For somebody of Nicola’s size, it would have taken one or two breaths in of water to be a lethal dose.’
Cold water expert Dr Patrick Morgan said Ms Bulley may have only been able to hold her breath for ‘one or two seconds at best’.
He told the inquest: ‘(After falling in) the heart rate goes excessively high, the blood pressure surges excessively high.
‘The heart pumps no blood, and the brain switches off. The potential conscious time here quoted are optimistic… it is potentially shorter.
‘On the occasion that the individual has taken that initial gasp on the surface of the water and then gone below, the duration would be 10 seconds that you could hold your breath, and very likely one or two seconds at best.’
The temperature of the water on the day Ms Bulley went missing meant that someone would lose consciousness within roughly 20 to 30 seconds, said Prof Tipton.
He told the inquest: ‘In my opinion, given the nature of the likely entry into the water, I would suspect Nikki had a gasp response under the water, initiating the drowning process.
‘On the balance of probability there was a fairly rapid incapacitation due to the cold shock.
‘It was also heard it could have been an estimated “20 to 30 seconds’ before she lost consciousness.
On how a person would react to entering cold water, Prof Tipton said: ‘Those first seconds in the water people really aren’t considering anything else.
‘We have heard people talk about roots to grab onto and points of safety but you would not be thinking about that.
‘You are preoccupied with attempting to hold your breath and get back to the surface. There is no normal, logical cognition going on.’
An underwater search expert, Dr Lorna Dennison Wilkins told the inquest in Preston that Nicola Bulley’s body may have sunk under the surface of the river after she fell in.
‘Nikki might have had some buoyancy in her clothing which would have dispelled.
‘Once that happened, she would have lost that buoyancy and her body would have sunk under the surface, was my assessment.’
