A HAIRDRESSER died from a stroke days after undergoing surgery for a brain haemorrhage, an inquest heard.

Lisa Skinner, 39, collapsed at home in Sycamore Avenue, Burnley, after suffering severe headaches.

She had woken up on the night of July 13 because of the pain and then collapsed in the toilet.

Her husband Richard called an ambulance at around midnight and she was taken to Royal Blackburn Hospital, where a brain scan showed she had had an aneurysm.

In the early hours of July 14 she was transferred to Preston Hospital and underwent surgery that lunchtime.

Consultant pathologist Professor Tim Dawson, who carried out a post-mortem examination on Mrs Skinner, said she had ‘significant brain swelling, but after the operation her progress was initially good’.

Days after her operation Mrs Skinner, who worked at the Christian Smith Hairdressing salon in Barrowford, was classed as fully conscious, but she started to deteriorate when doctors found the vessels in her brain were starting to ‘vasospasm’.

This is a condition where the vessels begin to spasm and become smaller, making it more difficult for blood to get to the brain.

Dr Nihal Gurusinghe, a consultant neurosurgeon for Lancashire Teaching Hospital NHS Trust, said: “Forty per cent of patients will suffer from vasospasms, which are related to the amount of blood that leaked from the haemorrhage.

“In this case, because of the amount of blood, the chance of Mrs Skinner suffering vasospasms was over 90 per cent.

“Because the vessels became smaller the brain started dying because of a lack of blood and oxygen getting to the brain.”

As a result of this Mrs Skinner suffered a stroke on July 20, which caused her death. Deputy coroner Simon Jones recorded a verdict of natural causes.