An 11-year-old English girl died in a freak accident after a branch concealed beneath mud pierced her heart while she was playing with friends, according to reports.
Lilly Angel Rodgers, from Newton Abbot, was taking part in a “commando crawl” with friends on a muddy bank at Wacker Quay near Plymouth when a sharp, hidden branch suddenly penetrated her ribs, Cornwall Live reported.
Rodgers was described as an active child who enjoyed surfing, climbing, camping and paddle-boarding. The fatal accident occurred on a summer day, the outlet said.
Rodgers had stayed up late at a friend’s home the previous night. The next day, she went to the mud flats with two friends, their mother and the mother’s partner, an inquest heard on Monday.
While the adults prepared a barbecue, the three children slid down the mud bank and “played starfish” within the adults’ view, the children’s mother told investigators.
Rodgers was sliding headfirst down the bank near a river channel when she was impaled by the branch. She stood up, clutched her chest and gasped before collapsing into the mud.
The children’s mother and her partner attempted to reach Rodgers through the mud. Another adult then arrived, followed by emergency responders.
The sharp branch severed Rodgers’ pulmonary artery, causing her heart to stop, the inquest was told.
Rodgers was airlifted to dry land so CPR could be performed. It took about 40 minutes for her to be brought back from the mud flats to shore, according to the outlet.
Dr. James Garvican, a consultant pathologist at Royal Cornwall Hospital who carried out Rodgers’ autopsy, told the inquest that her cause of death was “penetrating chest trauma.”
“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,” Garvican said.
Andrew Cox, senior coroner for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, ruled that Rodgers’ death was accidental.
“Whatever Lilly fell on caused the wound found at the postmortem and resulted in her death,” Cox said, according to the outlet.
“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.”
“Lilly and her friends had played many times before in that location. She was being watched over by adults who had made sure she stayed within their line of sight,” he said.
