Navy Wren suffering from diabetes was left to die on cabin floor after shipmates thought she was drunk

A Royal Navy officer was left to die in a diabetic coma because shipmates thought she was drunk, an inquest heard yesterday.

Lieutenant Emma Douglas, 29, who had been ill for a week, collapsed on her cabin floor where she lay half-naked and struggling to breathe.

The door was open but the colleague who found her didn't seek medical help.

Instead, the door was pulled shut and she was left. By the time a check was made 24 hours later, she was dead.

Yesterday, more than three years after her death, the inquest was told that colleagues had assumed that Miss Douglas was drunk despite the fact that she was health conscious and a light drinker.

Tests showed there was no alcohol in her body.

The ambitious young Wren, a former public school girl, had gone to a Navy doctor four days before she died in October 2004.

She had lost four stone in two months and had been vomiting blood. Surgeon Commander Marcus Evershed diagnosed a throat infection.

Miss Douglas was given antibiotics and advised to eat yoghurt to calm her stomach but became increasingly ill, it was said.

Scroll down for more...

The Newcastle University engineering graduate, one of the few women engineers in the Navy, rang her mother, Cynthia, the next day and said she ought to be at home.

A day later she was found collapsed with stomach cramps.

She had first become ill with a stomach infection caused by an unclean ice cube while her ship was on a goodwill visit to St Petersburg.

The inquest in Plymouth heard how this may have hastened the onset of the diabetes which killed her but which was never diagnosed.

The hearing was told there was a 99.5 per cent chance she would have survived if she had been correctly diagnosed with diabetes when she saw the Navy doctor and given the appropriate medical assistance.

Police were called in after Miss Douglas was found dead aboard the frigate Cornwall at Devonport Naval Base, Plymouth.

Detective Chief Inspector Alistair Cuthbert, who led the investigation, said a duty watch sailor first found her "with laboured breathing" on Saturday October 2.

He told the officer of the day but it was 24 hours before the decision was made to check on her.

Mr Cuthbert added: "Our investigation looked at the medical care provided and whether basic medical care could and should have been provided in her cabin.

"It was clear from information we received it had been assumed Lieutenant Douglas was drunk when she was found on the cabin floor."

He said the officer should have taken action if informed a crew member was drunk.

Mr Cuthbert added: "The majority of experts we consulted said she would have survived if admitted to hospital on September 29."

Surgeon Commander Evershed said Miss Douglas had not complained of the symptoms of diabetes.

He considered the possibility but ruled it out. He denied failing in his duty when he passed her fit for duty and sent her back to rest in her cabin.

Pathologist Dr Debbie Cook said Miss Douglas died from diabetic keto-acidosis, which leads to confusion, coma and death.

The Wren, from Huntley, Aberdeenshire, had followed her father Christopher into a career at sea.

He had been a merchant marine officer but drowned when his ship sank when she was 13.

The inquest continues.