Rebecca Jane Hitchings: Woman trampled to death by cows while walking her dog

A woman has died after being trampled by a herd of cows while on a dog walk, an inquest has been told.

Rebecca Jane Hitchings, 59, was discovered with severe injuries near Minehead in Somerset and was airlifted to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth.

Tragically, doctors were unable to save her, and she died on October 16.

Philip Spinney, the senior coroner of the local area, said Ms Hitchings suffered blunt trauma, which caused haemorrhagic shock.

She was a retired nurse and was born in Exeter.

According to the BBC, the inquest was adjourned and is expected to be transferred to the Somerset coroner for a full hearing.

This comes after a woman sent her mother a picture of cows just moments before she was trampled to death.

Rebekah Morris, 29, had been on a dog walk in Littlethorpe, Leicestershire on July 9, 2022, when she sent the photo and captioned it “cowz”.

After Ms Morris stopped replying to her family’s messages, they went to look for her and found her with fatal injuries.

An inquest was told the farmer and other residents gave her CPR while they waited for emergency services to arrive, but she sadly died at the scene.

The BBC reported that initial reports said Ms Morris had been attacked or strangled, but a post-mortem examination found otherwise.

Michael Biggs, a forensic pathologist, told the inquest Ms Morris had hoofprints in her chest and shoulder and suffered an injured liver which led to the internal bleeding that caused her death.

“The nature of the injuries and the severity of them are too excessive to have been caused by another person, they are consistent with a large heavy creature such as a cow,” he said.

Mr Biggs said it was unlikely that the entire herd had been involved in the incident. He said it was likely it had been a “relatively brief incident involving one cow” because Ms Morris’ injuries were not consistent with a trampling by multiple animals.