Helen Davey: Heartbreak as mother-of-two is killed by her collapsing ottoman gas lift bed

A coroner has alerted ministers after a businesswoman died in a freak accident when an ottoman bed collapsed on her head.

Mother-of-two Helen Davey, 39, suffocated when she became trapped between the mattress and the bed base.

Neighbours said she was discovered by her daughter Elizabeth, 19, at their home in Seaham, County Durham.

An inquest this month found that Ms Davey’s death was an accident because one of the gas pistons, which raised the mattress, was defective.

On Sunday it emerged that Jeremy Chipperfield, senior coroner for Durham and Darlington, has written to the Government warning there is a risk of further deaths unless action is taken.

He said it was his duty to warn the Office for Product Standards at the Department for Business and Trade about “the existence and use of gas-piston bed mechanisms whose failure presents a risk to life”.

An ottoman is a bed with cylinders that lift the mattress so the space underneath can be used for storage.

In his report after the hearing, the coroner said: “The deceased was leaning over the storage area of an ottoman-styled ‘gas-lift bed’ when the mattress platform descended unexpectedly, trapping her neck against the upper surface of the side panel of the base.”

“Unable to free herself, she died of positional asphyxia.”

Daughter Elizabeth, who is known as Betty, did not want to comment but following the tragedy in June she told in a Facebook post how she and her brother George, 11, were struggling to “process what had happened”.

She wrote: “No words would ever describe how we are feeling. I can’t even begin to process that it’s real and you’re not just going to walk through the door.”

“Mine and George’s best friend from day one, I will always wish we had more time together and that you were still by our side supporting us through everything as always.

“I hope you know how much I love you and that I’d do anything for one more cuddle. Until we meet again my angel.”

Ms Davey ran her own beauty business called All Dolled Up from her new-build terraced home.

One local said neighbours were questioned by detectives, adding that Betty left the home on the night of the accident and has not lived there since.

He said: “The daughter went out for a couple of hours and when she came back, she must have found her. It’s a tragedy.”

Ms Davey’s death is the second fatal accident in her family.

Her brother Luke, 16, died of a brain injury when he crashed his moped into a telegraph pole in 2011.