Daily Mail

Restaurant owner dies 2 days after getting a sore throat

- By Liz Hull

a BuSIneSSMa­n who complained of a sore throat collapsed and died two days later from a rare form of laryngitis, an inquest heard.

antonio Martin-Melero, 37, was on a break with his wife when he started feeling unwell.

the restaurant owner assumed he had tonsilliti­s and decided to return home to visit his GP, but less than 48 hours later he woke in the night struggling for breath.

His wife Victoria, 27, called 999 but he suffered a seizure and cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

tests showed Mr Martin-Melero, who was otherwise fit and healthy, had a very severe and rare inflammati­on of the larynx, normally associated with young children who have not been properly vaccinated. Doctors said they had not seen such a case in an adult before.

an inquest in Blackpool was told Mr MartinMele­ro had given up a sales career to open a Mediterran­ean restaurant three years ago.

He and Victoria married in Spain in 2016 but tragedy struck on august 17 last year, three weeks before their first wedding anniversar­y. Mrs Martin-Melero, a hotel manageress, of thornton-Cleveleys, lancashire, said: ‘From when he woke me up to when the ambulance came he deteriorat­ed very quickly.

‘We just can’t get our heads around it. everyone is heartbroke­n, especially when he was really fit and healthy. to look at him you’d think he wasn’t the sort of person something like this could happen to.’

Pathologis­t Dariusz Golka gave the cause of death as ‘respirator­y failure due to a very aggressive laryngitis infection’.

Coroner Claire Doherty recorded a verdict of natural causes.

 ??  ?? Wedding: Antonio Martin-Melero died less than a year after marrying Victoria
Wedding: Antonio Martin-Melero died less than a year after marrying Victoria

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