A DAUGHTER died after spending the night at a party in Teignmouth with friends and her mother, an inquest heard.
Cleaner Sara Rushton, 30, died from an overdose of prescribed medication at her flat in Northumberland Place in January.
South Devon coroner Ian Arrow declared the death was accidental. There were no suspicious circumstances.
Sara’s mother Pauline from Newton Abbot, in a statement, said the party was held at the flat of her daughter’s on-off boyfriend Max Carter.
She recalled her daughter was rolling a cannabis joint, music was playing and there was a happy party mood.
Mother and daughter danced with each other, with Mrs Rushton later ‘crashing out’ at the flat and waking up there the following morning of January 18, a Monday.
She then went to her daughter’s flat next door where she found her lying on her front on top of the bed ‘as if she had passed out.’
She got in beside her and awoke later with her daughter in the same position.
The inquest in Torquay was told that Mrs Rushton had thought at the time she left the flat that perhaps ‘something was wrong.’
She returned home where she later received a phone call telling her Sara had died. ‘I collapsed in shock,’ she said.
Mr Carter, in his statement, said he found Sara in her flat and called an ambulance and started CPR treatment.
He said his girlfriend was ‘not into pills’ and was an infrequent user of cannabis.
He revealed how he went to her flat on the Monday morning to wake her up.
‘She was not in a normal sleeping position. I tried to move her but I realised she was deceased. I still can’t believe what happened,’ he recalled.
Another flatmate said he was shocked and upset by the tragedy. He wished he’d remembered more – but he had been drinking and smoking cannabis.
Sara was confirmed dead at the scene at 1pm.
The exact cause of death was given as an overdose of prescribed medication.
Ian Arrow said: ‘It seems she was happy that evening – and intoxicated.’
But he said no one could be certain of the circumstances in which she took the medication which killed her.
He said her death was accidental.
The tragedy, he added, must have been a terrible shock to everyone.
‘It was so normal the night before – and so terrible to realise the news later on,’ he said.