A TEENAGER from Burnley died from multiple injuries when her first ride on a scooter ended in a Greek island tragedy.

Hairdresser Jeanette Dailey, 19, was on holiday with her sister Sarah in Cephalonia and they were riding the machine together when it left the road and hit a tree.

Sarah, formerly of Venice Avenue, Burnley, and now living in Skelmersdale, told an inquest in Burnley it was the first time Jeanette had ridden a scooter and that they had only been out three or four minutes when the accident happened.

Jeanette, a former pupil at Gawthorpe High School, Padiham, had borrowed the machine from other holidaymakers at their hotel and neither of them were wearing crash helmets.

Sarah said that on August 11 they spent most of the day by the poolside and that Jeanette did not drink alcohol that day because she had sunstroke.

After going out for an evening meal, they returned to the hotel and a man called Mark offered them the use of the scooter.

She had not driven a moped before and was not too confident. Sarah added: "When she tried to turn a right hand bend we just didn't turn and went into a tree or rock. We flew off and hit a tree."

Jeanette got up and ran to a car, but then collapsed. Both were taken into intensive care at Argostoli hospital where Sarah was told that Jeanette had died.

Pathologist Dr Abdul Al-Dawoud said cause of death was multiple injuries. Asked by the family if more could have been done to save Jeanette, he said both lungs had been damaged causing air to go into the chest cavity and damage to the spleen caused extensive haemorrhage.

The conditions were treatable but it depended on the circumstances.

Analysis in Greece showed that Jeanette had alcohol to the equivalent of the British legal driving limit in her system.

Sarah said she could not understand that as Jeanette had not had a drink that day.

East Lancashire coroner David Smith said a police inquiry in Greece had shown the moped had no defects and they believed the machine had probably skidded on dry pine leaves at the edge of the road surface. He recorded a verdict of accidental death.

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