'My daughter was told she was well enough to go on holiday - two days later she was dead'

Toni Browne, a 34-year-old musician from Harpfield Road, Trent Vale in Stoke-on-Trent, was suffering from metastatic breast cancer that had spread to her spine, contributing to her death

A woman tragically died just before a planned trip abroad, having been assured she would be well enough to go. Toni Browne had her suitcases packed for a holiday to Gran Canaria when she was rushed to hospital and died.

The 34-year-old from Harpfield Road, Trent Vale in Stoke-on-Trent, was suffering from metastatic breast cancer that had spread to her spine, contributing to her death.

But her family claim that Toni had been visited at her home by Douglas Macmillan Hospice staff on January 13, 2023, who assured Toni and her mum, Julie Browne, that she was not nearing the end of her life.

But two days later paramedics were called and Toni was taken to the critical care resuscitation unit at the Royal Stoke University Hospital. The musician was diagnosed with respiratory sepsis and pneumonia, suffered a cardiac arrest, and died the same day, Stoke on Trent Live reports.

An inquest this week heard that hospital staff suspected Toni may have accidentally overdosed on a prescribed painkiller. This led to her being administered four doses of Naloxone within 20 minutes to counteract the suspected opioid overdose.

However, Julie disputes the idea that her daughter overdosed and says she therefore did not need the Naloxone. The coroner has now ruled that Toni died of natural causes, a decision that mum Julie plans to appeal.

The inquest also revealed that Toni had been in the Royal Stoke from December 28, 2022, to January 6, 2023, before returning to the Hartshill complex on January 15, 2023.

Coroner Li Hammond-Naylor said: "Toni was taken to the Royal Stoke University Hospital by paramedics with respiratory distress and she was responding only to pain. Toni presented to A&E with pinpoint pupils and she was treated with Naloxone which had little to no effect. Toni also had pneumonia and respiratory failure. At 3.45pm she went into cardiac arrest, she was resuscitated, but her breathing was irregular and she was palliated and then passed away.

“It is more likely than not that her death was caused by bilateral pleural effusion (a build up of fluid between the lung and the chest wall) contributed by pneumonia with a background of metastatic breast cancer. Her death will be recorded as one of natural causes.”