Margaret Eluned Roberts: Mum, 99, desperately wanted to reach 100, but one cup of tea stopped her

A mother’s dream to reach the age of 100 was tragically cut short after a tea accident led to her death.

Margaret Eluned Roberts was living in a nursing home on the island of Anglesey in Wales when the unfortunate incident happened.

The 99-year-old, who was registered blind, had been served a cup of hot black tea by Sarah Thomas, a healthcare assistant at the Glan Rhos nursing home.

Ms Thomas handed Ms Roberts the drink on September 22 last year in a plastic two-handled cup, and said the woman was “very independent” and had wanted to drink the tea on her own.

She watched as Ms Roberts sat on her chair and sipped the tea through a straw, and then moved away, the DailyMail reported.

An inquest has heard that later, Ms Roberts spilled the tea on herself and Ms Thomas did not hear the woman scream.

Jo Reavey, a nurse at the home, said she heard Ms Roberts shouting in an “urgent tone” and found her “distraught” with her arms raised.

The cup was upside down and tea was on her trousers. Later, a burn wound started to blister, and staff held cold towels over it.

Ms Roberts’ daughter, Linda Pritchard, received a call from the home explaining what had happened.

Ms Pritchard said she asked them why they gave a blind lady hot black tea.

An ambulance was called within the hour, but it only arrived about three hours after the incident.

The wound was intially eight per cent of Ms Roberts’ body weight, but overtime the reddening lessened and it halved in measurement, to four per cent. This fell below the 10 per cent threshold for admission to the burns unit.

After being treated, Ms Roberts was taken back to the nursing home, but she then developed chest problems.

She was admitted back into hospital, and her consultant physician Dr Abdul Azu told the inquest that her condition did not improve. Tragically, she died there on October 28, five weeks after the tea spill.

Kate Robertson, a senior coroner, determined that Ms Roberts died as a result of the “medical conditions which were precipitated by the burn injury sustained on her leg”.

These conditions were pneumonia and cellulitis secondary to the burn, in combination with other factors including old age, asthma and ischaemic heart disease.

She said the cause of death was an accident, and that the spillage was “unintended and accidental”.

Dr Azu told the inquest that the burn had contributed to Ms Roberts developing a chest infection because she had not been moving around.

“She was lying in bed. The scalding was a factor in her declining health,” he said.

Ms Robertson told Ms Pritchard that her mother had “wanted to reach 100-years-old” and that it “would have been such a significant milestone for her and for [Ms Pritchard]”.

She gave her condolences, and said she hoped Ms Pritchard had “fond memories” to rely upon.