An 11-year-old girl died in a freak accident after a sharp branch hidden beneath the mud pierced her chest while she was playing with friends.
Lilly Angel Rodgers, from Newton Abbot, was taking part in a game with two friends at Wacker Quay near Plymouth when the concealed branch struck her as she slid headfirst down a muddy bank.
The devastating incident happened during a summer day out with the children, their mother and the mother’s partner. An inquest heard on Monday how the youngsters had been playing on the mud flats while the adults prepared a barbecue nearby.
Lilly was described as an active child who loved surfing, climbing, camping and paddle-boarding.
Lilly Angel Rodgers, 11, was playing with her friends in the mud flats at Wacker Quay near Plymouth when a pointy branch hidden in the mud punctured her heart.GoFundMe
The night before the accident, she had stayed up late at a friend’s house. The following day, she joined her friends at the mud flats, where the children played under the watch of the adults.
According to the mother’s evidence, the three children slid down the muddy bank and played “starfish” within the adults’ line of sight.
At one point, Lilly was sliding headfirst near a river channel when she landed on the concealed branch.
The branch pierced through her ribs. Lilly reportedly stood up, grabbed her chest and gasped before collapsing into the mud.
The adults immediately tried to reach her through the difficult terrain, with another person also coming to help before emergency responders arrived.
The injury had severed Lilly’s pulmonary artery, causing her heart to stop.
She was airlifted to dry land so that CPR could be performed, but the difficult journey from the mud flats to shore took around 40 minutes.
‘This Was Not a Survivable Injury’
Dr. James Garvican, a consultant pathologist at Royal Cornwall Hospital who carried out Lilly’s autopsy, told the inquest that her cause of death was “penetrating chest trauma.”
He explained that the location of the injury made the outcome exceptionally unfortunate.
“It’s extremely bad luck,” Garvican said, explaining that a slight difference in where the branch struck could have resulted in a much less serious injury.
Instead, the branch damaged vital structures and caused an injury that could not have been survived.
Senior Coroner for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly Andrew Cox concluded that Lilly’s death was accidental.
According to the coroner, the object Lilly fell onto caused the fatal wound identified during the postmortem examination.
“There was nothing suspicious,” Cox said, describing the incident as an extraordinarily unlikely accident.
The branch had been concealed beneath the mud, meaning there was no apparent way for Lilly or the adults watching the children to know that the danger was there.
Adults Were Watching the Children
Cox also noted that Lilly and her friends had played in the same area on previous occasions.
He said the children were being supervised by adults who had ensured they remained within their line of sight.
The coroner concluded that Lilly had simply encountered a hidden hazard while playing in a familiar location.
Her death was therefore formally recorded as an accident — a heartbreaking outcome from what had begun as an ordinary day spent outdoors with friends.