Last updated 19:43, Thursday, 17 April 2008

A WORKINGTON woman died after a lit cigarette caused a house fire, an inquest heard this week.

Audrey Mary Shepherd, 56, of Pearl Road, Salterbeck, died at her home on December 3 last year.

The fire is believed to have started when a discarded cigarette was vacuumed up and smouldered inside the cleaner

It eventually set fire to the vacuum cleaner in the dining room, and spread to the living room and kitchen, but it had burned out by the time Mrs Shepherd was discovered by neighbour Anthony Robinson.

On Tuesday, the inquest heard how she was rescued from the fire after a text message.

Mrs Shepherd’s daughter, Tracey Marie Briggs, said: “On December 3 my daughter said she had a text from a neighbour who said they were worried about my mum. I rang her house a few times.”

She said that when she got there the house was empty and the windows were black.

She said: “There had been a fire. The curtains were black. I ran up the street to get Tony Robinson.

“He tried to barge the door in. My daughter was on the phone to the emergency services. Next thing I remember her body was on the floor.”

Mr Robinson said: “Tracey came shouting that something was wrong with her mum. The windows and doors were black. I got some tools and broke in. I saw her kneeling on the floor.”

Fire officers said, in a report to the inquest, that the fire had started in a vacuum cleaner in the dining room. They said it was a slow fire which developed over a number of hours.

The fire spread to the dining and living room and kitchen, but was out by the time firefighters arrived.

The report said it was caused by either a discarded cigarette end in the cleaner, or a foreign body causing heat friction and therefore a fire.

The products in the vacuum and the plastic of the appliance caused toxic fumes.

Coroner John Taylor heard from Mrs Briggs that her and her two brothers David and Ben had a happy, healthy childhood.

She said: “She was a stay at home mum. She was always there for us.

“She was a fabulous woman who will be sorely missed by her family and friends.”

Mr Taylor said: “The only possible cause that could be given was that a cigarette had smouldered away in the vacuum cleaner or a foreign body became lodged and set on fire.

“It is possible she cleaned up the cigarette that was not extinguished. That may have been why the vacuum cleaner caught fire.”

A consultant pathologist said Mrs Shepherd died of smoke inhalation and aschemic heart disease caused by the inhalation.

Mr Taylor recorded a verdict that she died of an accident.