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Victor and Ernestine Davies |
Pensioner found hanged left ‘What is dying?’ message
Husband who discovered body tells inquest that retired nurse had spoken of suicide
A LEADING figure in the tenants’ group at her Holloway block of flats hanged herself from a kitchen cupboard, an inquest has heard.
The body of Austrian-born Ernestine Davies, 69, was found hanging from the cupboard at her home in Widdenham Road, Holloway, in February last year
Her husband of 28 years, Victor Davies, 66, who discovered her, also found a poem, What is Dying? by Bishop Brent, but no suicide note, a St Pancras inquest heard last week.
Mr Davies, a retired independent financial advisor, said: “I went into the kitchen and found her hanging. I thought at first she was bending down looking into the cupboard.”
After he cut a string tied to her neck and wrists, he tried to give her the kiss of life.
Mr Davies said he had caught his wife in the act of trying to hang herself in the bathroom two days earlier.
He said: “She’d been talking about suicide for some time. I thought it was an impossibility to hang yourself from the cupboard. Short of forcing her to go to the hospital I wasn’t sure what I could do.”
Police believed injuries to her wrists and neck were caused by the material she used to hang herself and were not suspicious. Her hands were loosely tied together.
Mrs Davies, a former nurse, had recovered from a bout of depression in 1992 after a road accident, but was struck with another episode in November 2006.
The inquest heard she kept prescribed anti-depressant tablets at home and had been self-medicating.
GP Dianne Rosenthal told the court that Mrs Davies had been concerned about her husband’s health.
Psychiatrist Dr Gianetta Rands, of Camden and Islington Mental Health Trust, said: “When people are recovering from a depression they are more at risk than at any other time in their lives and I think she had turned a corner.”
Coroner Dr Andrew Reid concluded that Mrs Davies had taken her life. He added: “She did so knowing that it was unlikely she would be found and rescued.” |
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