A 34-year-old hair salon owner died of a heart attack on New Year’s Eve after taking cocaine for the first time.
Francesca ‘Franki’ Phillips’ husband Darren spent £80 on a gram of the Class A drug as they wanted to ‘do something new’ to celebrate, an inquest heard.
Darren had not taken cocaine since he was a teenager, while Franki had never used it before.
The couple, who had ‘no plans’ to continue using the drug, discussed their worries but decided to go ahead with it.
However, soon after snorting cocaine, Franki began feeling ill and started ‘turning blue’, the inquest heard.
The couple had been enjoying a quiet night in playing video games, and Franki had three Disaronno and Pepsis.
They each snorted two small lines of cocaine about two hours apart, and Franki had ‘a couple of drags’ of her husband’s cannabis.
At around 10.30pm, she began complaining of backache and started vomiting. The pain moved up to her shoulders, and shortly after midnight, she went upstairs and asked for aspirin.
Darren called 999 shortly after 1am and said he thought she might be having a heart attack as her chest was tightening.
Her condition worsened, and Darren rang 999 again at 2.10am, by which time she was ‘turning blue and struggling to breathe’.
He was told an ambulance would be there in 18 minutes, and the operator apologised for the delay as he pleaded for them to ‘please hurry up’.
By then, Franki’s sister Laura and her boyfriend Benjamin had arrived.
Benjamin made two further 999 calls before an ambulance arrived at 2.34am, and paramedics began CPR when Franki went into cardiac arrest.
Despite 45 minutes of attempts to restart her heart, she was declared dead shortly after 3.30am.
The incident happened on January 1, 2023. At the inquest held on the Isle of Wight, Darren said he ‘fully’ regretted buying the cocaine and sent a message to others saying ‘Just don’t do it’.
Laura told the court she felt powerless waiting for the ambulance and felt the call was not treated as a priority.
Benjamin said he noticed two paramedics sharing a laugh as they arrived, before their demeanour changed when they saw how serious the situation was.
Kathryn Taylor, head of quality governance for the ambulance service, said the incident was given a Category 2 response, which is for emergencies such as suspected heart attacks, where the target response time is 18 minutes.
An ambulance was dispatched at 2.16am and arrived at 2.41am, which she accepted was above the expected time.
Pathologist Dr Adnan Al-Badri carried out a post-mortem and gave the provisional cause of death as cardiac arrest due to a coronary artery spasm caused by cocaine use. He said cocaine had played a ‘significant’ role in her death.
Detective Sergeant Tom Kenney told the court police later identified dealer Jack Budden as the man who supplied the cocaine.
Manslaughter was ruled out for prosecution, but Budden was charged with supplying a Class A drug and received a two-year prison sentence, suspended for 18 months.
He was later jailed in 2025 for further, unrelated drug offences. No action was taken against Darren.
DS Kenney said it was considered a ‘joint enterprise’ between the couple to take cocaine and it was not in the public interest to prosecute a husband who would ‘have to live with what happened for the rest of his life’.
The IW Ambulance Service launched a Patient Safety Incident Investigation into the actions of specialist critical care paramedic Fred Thompson, who was the most senior clinician at the scene.
It found that the first crew planned to take Franki to hospital once everything possible had been done at the house. Mr Thompson decided instead not to move her.
The investigation concluded that his decision not to convey her to hospital was ‘difficult to justify’ and an ‘error of judgement’ and not the expectations of an experienced paramedic.
Mr Thompson also used an ultrasound machine, which he was not supposed to. Importantly, he was not supposed to use it to decide whether resuscitation should be stopped.
Investigators said he misread and misinterpreted the information from the device.
Mr Thompson resigned from the ambulance service in 2023 and referred himself to the professional regulator.
A Health and Care Professions Tribunal is still considering whether he should face disciplinary action or be struck off.
Mr Thompson, who now works for private healthcare provider Practice Plus Group, insisted that he and the other paramedics believed the live monitor showed a flat line.
He said his actions were ‘done in the best interest without malice’.
Darren said he felt Mr Thompson had ‘played God’ by declaring his wife dead.
Franki’s sister, Victoria, said the paramedic had shown a ‘lack of respect and cowardice’ by being difficult to contact after leaving the service, which had delayed the inquest.
The coroner said she had to employ a private investigator to track him down.
Franki’s sister Victoria described her as ‘the most beautiful, kind-hearted person I knew’ – as well as generous, animal-loving, a keen reader who enjoyed learning about astronomy and someone who ‘gave great advice’.
Mrs Sumeray said it was ‘very difficult’ to point to any one factor that led to Franki’s death other than cocaine.
She warned that cocaine use is becoming increasingly common among younger people on the Island and issued a stark message: ‘Drugs kill, and we don’t know what we’re taking.
‘I am heartbroken that this family has been torn apart by this. A beautiful young woman died, and for what?’
The inquest continues.
