Family thank those who tried to save Oswestry woman before death at aqueduct
The family of a woman who died at an aqueduct have thanked the people who tried to save her.
An inquest heard how off-duty police officer Luke Neal, who had been running along the towpath at Chirk Aqueduct, spent about 30 minutes trying to engage with Amanda May on June 16 last year.
A couple who were nearby in their narrowboat also stopped to help. When PC Michael Jones arrived, he too spent some time trying to chat to her.
The inquest heard how the 53-year-old, of Lower Frankton, Oswestry, had been increasingly physically and mentally unwell since the beginning of 2023, and she was convinced that she had Motor Neurone Disease, not believing doctors who told her it was a post-viral neurological disorder.
On June 13 she was taken to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital after taking an overdose, and while there was spoken to several times by a mental health nurse.
Various options for her care and treatment were considered but Ms May, who was deemed to have the capacity to make decisions, was adamant she didn’t want to be in a special unit, so was allowed home in the early hours of June 15 to be under the care of the mental health service’s crisis team.
At 7am the following day she told her partner Richard Jones that she was going out for a coffee, but when she did not return he began searching for her.
In his statement PC Luke Neal, who did not tell Ms May he was a police officer in case it frightened her, said she told him: “They just want to section me. They think I'm mad.”
He tried to reassure her that people wanted to help her but “she seemed to have switched off...very distant".
Kevin Mansell, a former psychiatric nurse who investigated the matter for Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust’s serious incident review, told the inquest that some improvements in dealing with such cases including liaising with the families were being introduced as a result.
“When she was discharged there was a clear plan for the following day,” he said.
Recording a conclusion of suicide. John Gittins, senior coroner for North Wales East and Central, paid tribute to compassion shown by those who tried to help Ms May on the day of her death.
After the inquest her parents Richard and Liz May, and her sister Emma Blantern issued a statement which read: “We would like to thank all members of the emergency services and those members of the public involved in trying to save our daughter’s life at Chirck Aqueduct on the 16th of June, 2023.
“We are so aware that it must have been a very traumatic event for all of them and words cannot describe our appreciation and thanks for all that everyone did for her.”
The family also thanked the Coroner and his staff for their ”great care and support” without which they would not have managed through the dark days.
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