Singer died after bleed on the brain
APOPULAR singer died of a ‘ significant’ bleed on the brain after suffering a ‘blunt force trauma’ to the head, an inquest heard.
Tara Janine Apostoloss-Boyarin, of Whalley Road, Clayton-le-Moors, was found coughing up ‘black blood’ on August 2 this year - a few days after falling out of bed - and rushed to Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital.
A CT scan showed that she had a bleed on the brain and she was transferred to Royal Preston Hospital where her condition deteriorated. She passed away on August 4.
Blackburn Coroners Court heard there were ‘initial concerns that there may have been foul play’.
However, a post-mortem examination carried out by a Home Office pathologist Dr Brian Rodgers found ‘no third party involvement’ and that she ‘had not been assaulted by anyone’.
The inquest heard how Miss Apostoloss-Boyarin, 43, ‘used to drink excessively and from time to time took heroin’.
She was also diagnosed Hepatitis C positive, had chronic obstructive airways disease and was treated for deep vein thrombosis in 2006.
Dr Rodgers said her liver was ‘severely diseased’ and nearly 50 per cent larger than normal - and that caused her blood to ‘not clot properly’. The inquest also heard how her brain had shrunk ‘due to chronic alcohol use’ and this made her more susceptible to developing a bleed on the brain.
Dr Rodgers told the inquest that the subdural blood clot was of a ‘significant’ size and weight.
He said: “Her brain was severely damaged by the pressure of that bleed compressing the brain. A bleed like this doesn’t occur spontaneously, it is always associated with trauma.
“That trauma may be minimal but there’s always evidence of trauma. Unfortunately Tara had a number of risk factors to develop this bleed from a trivial degree of trauma. Even falling out of bed could easily cause this bleed.”
Her partner Anthony Morgan said he called for an ambulance on August 2 after noticing her left leg was ‘red hot’ and ‘going quite red’.
However, the hearing heard that she did not want to go to hospital and was ‘confused’.
Mr Morgan said the shoe factory worker had fallen out of bed a few days earlier and was ‘deteriorating’.
Coroner Michael Singleton recorded an accidental verdict and said her cause of death was blunt force head injury contributed to by cellulitis of the leg and alcoholic liver disease.