A 39-year-old mother of two was killed in a freak mishap when a folding Ottoman bed clamped down on her neck and asphyxiated her, according to a newly released coroner’s report.
Helen Davey, a beauty salon owner in northeast England, was found by her 19-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Davey, the BBC reported.
“I went upstairs, my man’s bedroom door was wide open and I saw her lying on her back with her head turned under the bed,” the daughter said during a court proceeding in the case.
“Her legs were bent as if she was trying to get up,” she said of her mom, who also had an 11-year-old son.
“I dropped everything that I was holding and tried to life the top of the bed off her head. The bed was no longer a soft close and could fall heavily if it was released.
“It was so heavy for me to lift it up and try to pull her out,” she said. “I managed to lift it up enough to use my foot to support it. I noticed that her face was blue with a clear indent on her neck from the frame.”
Ottoman beds have mattresses that can be raised by gas-lift hydraulics, and are popular because of the storage space under the platform that allows clothes and bedding to remain out of sight.
But it apparently malfunctioned in Davey’s case and slammed down unexpectedly, “trapping her neck against the upper surface of the side panel of the bed’s base,” coroner Jeremy Chipperfield said last week concluding the investigation into the mom’s June 7 death.
Chipperfield wrote British Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds to warn that the fatal malfunction should be a “matter of concern,” according to the BBC.
The coroner wrote that “unless action is taken” to address the issue, the “existence and use of gas piston bed mechanisms whose failure presents risk to life” could pose an ongoing concern.
“In my opinion there is a risk that future deaths could occur unless action is taken,” he wrote in the report. “In the circumstances it is my statutory duty to report to you.”
In 2022 alone, 18 people in the United Kingdom died from strangulation or suffocation in bed, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents told the news network.
On Oct. 4, an inquest into the incident ruled Davey’s death accidental.
Government regulatory officials have until December 2 to respond to the recommendation.
