One of the paramedics who attended the incident, Mark Marriott, said Ms Sturgess’ skin was “very blue”, adding “that would indicate a lack of, or no, blood flow”, and that she was not breathing.
Mr Marriott said Mr Rowley told him Ms Sturgess was complaining of a headache and was going to have a bath when he heard a noise, “like she was gurgling”, so went in and found her collapsed in the bathroom.
Mr Marriott told the inquiry: “So, while doing the compressions, I said to the male partner, ‘are you the partner?’ and he replied, ‘yes’.
“I said ‘what happened?’, he replied, ‘she was complaining of a headache and she was going to have a bath, I heard a noise that sounded like she was gurgling, I went in and found her collapsed in the bathroom, she was foaming at the mouth’.
“I asked the male partner ‘when did she collapse?’ and he replied ’10 to 15 minutes ago’. He was quite flustered and he seemed a bit jittery, quite muddled in himself.”
The paramedic said at this point he thought it was a cerebral incident, possibly a stroke, and turned on a portable defibrillator.
The defibrillator however gave him a “a verbal indication of no shock indicated”, so he carried on with compressions which is when more colleagues arrived.
At one point, the defibrillator indicated she was “shockable” and it was delivered, then he could see a pulse. The critical care team then arrived and administered naloxone in case she was suffering from an opiate overdose.
