A BARROW mum who had suffered from a 14-year drug addiction, died after slipping into a coma following years of substance abuse, an inquest heard.

Rachel Rooney, 29, of Ainslie Street, Barrow, died on March 25 earlier this year at Furness General Hospital after taking a cocktail of drugs, including heroin, amphetamine and diazepam.

The 29-year-old had been living with her boyfriend, Damien Starkie, who found Miss Rooney unconscious with blue lips after leaving her for 10 minutes to pick up a prescription from a nearby chemist on March 18.

He immediately rang 999 and followed instructions by paramedics to give his girlfriend CPR before she was later revived by ambulance crews and admitted to hospital. After days of being in intensive care, her condition never improved and she was transferred to palliative care but later passed away on March 25 at 6.06am.

Debbie Rooney, Rachel's mother, described her daughter as a "bubbly" person who had managed to wean off alcohol and had been trying to cure her drug addiction once and for all.

She said: "Rachel wanted to turn herself around because she said she was sick of being stuck in the flat all the time. She was clean for two years until 2014 after coming out of prison. She was going to get her kids back and she was doing really well. Up until she went into hospital I was only aware that she was taking cannabis."

Miss Rooney, who overdosed on two previous occasions in 2011 and 2014, had approached Unity, an NHS-run alcohol and drug recovery service, to seek help with her addiction on March 2. A follow-up meeting had been arranged for March 29 - just four days after her death.

Coroner Mr Paul O'Donnell, ruled that Miss Rooney had died of a drug-related death, with a toxicology report stating that she died of a hypoxic brain injury.

He said: "A cocktail or combination of drugs were found in Rachel's system. She confided in Unity that was she was using amphetamine daily and had taken heroin. She was also worried about unintentionally taking an overdose.

"She had been given an appointment for March 29 with Unity and I am quite sure that she would have attended that meeting in keeping with her consistent approach. Her children were clearly the key motivator in all of that."

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