Widower found dying on floor of his Chester home

Jun 12 2008 by Laurie Stocks-Moore, Chester Chronicle

A WIDOWER was discovered dying on his living room floor by a care worker.

Ronald Roberts, 86, fell at his home on Home Dee House, Garden Lane, Chester and died later at the Countess of Chester Hospital on November 19 last year.

It was the last in a number of falls in the years leading up to his death which had forced him to walk with a stick and an outdoor mobility frame.

At Trident House, Little St John Street on Monday, his nephew Clifford Guy Roberts, of Cranford Court, Chester spoke at the inquest into his uncle’s death.

He said: “His mobility in the last year was the worst it had been. The last fall was of some severity and shook his confidence.”

A regular and well-loved patron at the pub at the end of his road, The Home Guard, Mr Roberts was known as ‘The Colonel’ by friends.

His nephew added: “When I went in to The Home Guard there was shock and surprise because he’d been in the night before and been his normal character.”

Niece Jennifer Thomas visited Mr Roberts in hospital after the fall.

She said: “I asked him how he’d fallen. He just said ‘the stool’. He just made a lot of noises after that – I couldn’t make head nor tail of it.”

The retired caretaker had been widowed in 2002 when wife Evelyn died.

Moira Parry, a community support worker, of Longdale Drive, Blacon, was making her first scheduled visit to Mr Roberts when she found him on the floor. She recognised him as a regular at The Home Guard.

“I heard this moaning on the floor,” recounted Ms Parry. “He was cold so I covered him up with a duvet. He just said ‘my neck hurts’.”

Coroner for Cheshire Nicholas Rheinberg concluded Mr Roberts died as a result of an accidental fall after damaging the nerves in his spine which control the diaphragm and therefore his respiration.