A WOMAN who was more than four times the legal drink-drive limit died on her birthday while eating at her home.

An inquest heard that Lynda Wallington, who had a history of alcohol problems, had not drunk for six months after the house she shared with husband Reginald Wallington burnt down following a drunken evening.

The grandmother-of-one started drinking again in the run-up to her birthday, but on February 1 fell down the stairs and was taken to Southampton General Hospital for stitches to a head injury.

On February 3 the couple spent the afternoon drinking and in the early hours of February 4, Mrs Wallington’s 59th birthday, Mr Wallington found her dead in a chair at home in Pennywell Gardens, New Milton.

Dr Basil Purdue, an independent forensic pathologist, who carrid out a post-mortem, said that a piece of meat, possibly beef, had blocked the entrance to the mother-of-two’s voice box.

Senior coroner Grahame Short ruled a verdict of accidental death.