INTENSIVE care staff at Warrington Hospital accidentally punctured a patient's lung as they fought to keep her alive, an inquest heard.

Elizabeth Hughes, from Runcorn, died last October after suffering increasingly severe difficulties with her breathing as she recovered from an operation to reverse an ileostomy - a condition requiring the patient to carry a bag becauses the intestine no longer works.

Doctors told the 71-year-old there was only a 50/50 chance of the operation being a success, but she appeared to have recovered well from surgery before needing more help with her breathing, a condition that eventually forced her into intensive care.

As doctors fought to save her, they inserted a chest drain, which was later found to have punctured the lung.

Mrs Hughes's daughter Shirley Rees told Warrington Coroner's Court that her mother had been asking for tea and toast after the operation, but that her condition rapidly deteriorated.

She said: "She said to us, 'I've made it girls' and was looking forward to her next holiday.

"But just days later she was in intensive care.

"From there she deteriorated so quickly. I saw her one morning and she had grown so much with fluid that I fainted when I saw her."

Dr Geoffrey Little, consultant anaesthetist in intensive care, said Mrs Hughes had had difficulty breathing and the chest drain had been inserted to help her after she was found to have adult respiratory distress syndrome, which was also given as the cause of death.

He added that while the puncture would not have killed her, it may have accelerated her death.

Cheshire coroner Nicholas Rheinberg, in recording a verdict of death by misadventure, said her lung could have been so badly affected by the lung disease that it would have been impossible to avoid a puncture.