Student found dead in mental health unit despite observation
A LEEDS University student took her life while she was an inpatient on a mental health unit in the city, an inquest heard yesterday.
Katie Hamilton was in the final year of a philosophy and social policy degree when she was admitted to the Becklin Centre in Leeds on March 9, 2016.
Jurors at Wakefield Coroner’s Court heard the 26-year-old from Newcastle had already made three attempts on her life that week and was placed under observation every 15 minutes.
Despite this, she was found in her room with a ligature around her neck at 10.10pm that day.
Staff immediately began resuscitation efforts and Katie was taken to Leeds General Infirmary, where she died on March 12.
Pathologist Dr Kirsten Hope said the cause of death had been an irreversible hypoxic brain injury, caused by a lack of oxygen.
The court heard Katie had been diagnosed previously with emotionally unstable borderline split personality disorder and had been admitted to the Becklin Centre at least 22 times between 2011 and 2016.
After several years of unexplained collapses, she was also diagnosed in January 2016 with non-epileptic attack disorder.
Katie’s mother, Emma Hamilton, said her daughter first began to experience issues with her mental health after winning a place at the Rambert ballet school in London when she was 16 and her symptoms worsened after she was raped at 17.
Her deteriorating mental health meant she left the school after two years, and decided instead to return to academic studies.
Although she had a long history of self-harm and previous suicide attempts, Mrs Hamilton said Katie had been determined to finish her university degree.
But a series of events in the week leading to March 9 appeared to have brought about a change in her outlook on life, which left her mother “even more terrified”.
Mrs Hamilton said she warned Becklin Centre staff that observations every 15 minutes were not sufficient, only to be told the frequency would be reviewed the next morning.
Area coroner Jonathan Leach said the main issues for the inquest were likely to be the frequency of observations, whether Katie intended to take her life, and whether her death could reasonably have been prevented.
The hearing is expected to last up to two weeks. THE HEROIC police officer who saved a trapped van driver from plunging off a motorway bridge has told of how he had never witnessed anything like the scene he encountered by chance on an icy A1 last week.
PC Martin Willis was on his way to another reported collision when he spotted the overturned Iveco van on a bridge at junction 44 near Bramham, above the A64, shortly before 6am on Friday.
PC Willis, aged 50 and from Bradford, risked his life to save that of the prone driver, 25-yearold Thomas Dulson, by holding the vehicle’s rear axle for 15 minutes to stop it swaying in the wind.
His actions bought time for emergency services to arrive.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing at first,” he said. “Where the passenger’s side was there was a big hole where it had hit the barrier and I could see someone’s legs. I could tell that they were really badly broken.
“Vehicles were going past and it was quite windy so the vehicle was actually rocking and I’m thinking ‘this could go over onto the A64’. It’s about a 40ft drop and it’s going to kill the driver and people travelling underneath. I thought the only thing I can do is try and steady it. I said to the driver, ‘whatever you do, don’t move’.
“Our main priority is to save life and limb. That’s what you do and the health and safety rule book goes out the window. I’ve been working on motorways for ten years now and I’ve never come across anything like that before.”
Mr Dulson, who is from Bolton, was rushed to hospital with two broken legs. Posting on Facebook from his hospital bed, he said “without all those emergency services I wouldn’t be here to type this message”.