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

Elizabeth Hughes from Kingshead Close, Castlefields, Runcorn, died in October last year after she suffered increasingly severe breathing difficulties during her recovery from an operation to reverse an ileostomy - a condition that requires the patient to carry a bag as the intestine no longer works.

Doctors told the 71-year-old that there was a 50/50 chance of the operation being a success.

She initially appeared to have recovered well from her surgery before needing more and 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 a hole in it.

Her daughter, Shirley Rees, told the inquest at 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 real difficulty breathing and the chest drain had been inserted to help her after she was found to have adult respiratory distress syndrome. He added that while it would not have killed her, it may have increased the speed of her death.

Cheshire coroner Nicholas Rheinberg, in recording death by misadventure, said that her lung could have been so badly affected by the lung disease that it would have been impossible to avoid a puncturing of the lung. The cause of death was recorded as ARDS.