UK grandmother dies after she was hit on head by rugby ball

A UK grandmother died after she was hit on the head by a rugby ball as she watched her grandson play, an inquest has heard.

Somerset woman Jennifer Selwood was hit while watching a game at Taunton Rugby Football Club and suffered a brain bleed, the BBC reported.

She died two weeks later.

The inquest, held in the Somerset town of Wells, heard evidence that Selwood suffered from diabetes and a blood disorder which would cause “risk of significant bleeding”.

Her husband Colin said the pair were watching their grandson on January 12, 2020, when a stray ball from a game on an adjacent pitch hit the much-loved grandma on the head.

The ball hit Jennifer Selwood on the head as she watched her grandson play. Photo / 123RF

“She was struck. She just made a groan and collapsed to the ground, and I went down to support her,” Colin Selwood said.

Following advice from an off-duty doctor, he held his wife’s head until she was taken to local Musgrove Park Hospital.

She was later moved to Southmead Hospital in Bristol where she died two weeks later.

Consultant haematologist Dr Sarah Allford told the inquest that she had been caring for Jennifer Selwood for both her diabetes and the blood disorder aplastic anaemia.

She said the impact of the ball would have been enough to cause “greater bleeding problems” because of the conditions and led to an “increased risk of morbidity and mortality”.

John Wrelton, chairman of Taunton RFC, told the inquest that he not considered the risk of stray rugby balls to be life-threatening.

“In a lifetime involved in the game and having attended probably thousands of rugby matches, balls go into crowds and sometimes they bump people and sometimes they knock beer over ... genuinely I have never thought of it as a life-threatening risk.”

Senior Somerset coroner Samantha Marsh said that Selwood’s death was accidental, ruling: “This was a very tragic, unforeseen and unintended consequence of the deliberate act, and so therefore this is entirely an accident”.