Doctors failed to spot the 23-year-old’s deep vein thrombosis

A woman from Suffolk has died after a fall at work. 23-year-old Andrea Norris fell on her knee, breaking a bone, and sadly died three weeks later.

Ms Norris was working as a kitchen assistant at West Suffolk College when she fell causing a deep vein thrombosis, part of which broke off and reached her pulmonary artery and caused her death.

Ms Norris’ fiancé, Robert Stanton, was phoned at work on 30 January to tell him that Andrea had been taken to the West Suffolk Hospital, where A&E doctors told her she had a ‘sprain’ in her left knee.

Pulmonary embolism

Andrea was sent home with painkillers, advised to use an icepack, and to visit her GP if her condition worsened. “She was barely able to walk,” Mr Stanton told the inquest jury at Bury St Edmunds.

A week after the accident, Andrea’s doctor referred her to Ipswich Hospital, where an x-ray showed a minor fracture in her tribial plateau, below her knee. However, on 22 February Mr Stanton found his fiancée lying on the floor, with blood at her head.

A post-mortem showed that the deep vein thrombosis in Ms Norris’ leg had broken off and caused a pulmonary embolism from which, despite paramedics attending the scene, she tragically died. The inquest jury ruled her death to be an accident.