Coroner warns of ecstasy danger

Lorna had taken a lime-green tablet

A verdict of death by misadventure has been returned at the inquest into the death a 19-year-old student who died after taking extra-strong ecstasy.

Lorna Spinks, a sociology student at Anglia Polytechnic University, Cambridge, died in May.

Forensic tests showed that she had taken a lime green ecstasy tablet which was about one-and-a-half times the normal strength.

She collapsed at the Junction nightclub in Cambridge after buying the tablet from another student.

Lorna Spinks died in hospital

The inquest heard from friends of Miss Spinks who had been with her at the nightclub.

One friend told the inquest how he saw Miss Spinks shortly before she was taken to hospital.

"I saw Lorna coming towards me. She came and gave me a big hug.

"Her skin was so hot all over. Her words were not coming out correctly. They were backwards or gibberish.

"She was losing her sense of balance. I physically had to hold her to take her to the toilet."

The friend said shortly afterwards security staff had called an ambulance and he saw Miss Spinks being taken away.

Alan Spinks attended the inquest

"Lorna was squirming so violently they had to strap her down.

"She was also foaming at the mouth."

Recording a verdict of death by misadventure, coroner David Morris said young people should be aware of the dangers when taking ecstasy because of its unpredictability.

Miss Spinks died in hospital after spending 36 hours on a life support machine.

Her parents, Alan and Elizabeth Spinks, released a picture of their daughter's body pictured shortly after she died.

Drugs horror

Mrs Spinks said she hoped that the horror of the picture would serve as a warning.

"If it would save any other family going through what we have just been through.

"To see a child like Lorna, who was so, so pretty and when she was dying she looked like a monster who had been run over by a truck.

"All her organs had been affected. She had been bleeding from everywhere.

"She couldn't do anything on her own and eventually her heart gave out."