A YOUNG mother died after doctors failed to spot a 15cm-long toilet brush handle embedded in her buttock.

A judicial investigation into the death of Cindy Corton, 35, was told overnight she was left with the bizarre injury after a drunken fall in a friend's bathroom in 2005 but medics missed it - even after taking X-rays, The Sun reported.

It was two years before Mrs Corton, who was in constant pain, was able to convince doctors that the thin 15cm-long serrated plastic handle was stuck in the flesh of her bottom.

By then what should have been a routine procedure to remove it had become much more dangerous because the handle had become embedded in her pelvis.

After two unsuccessful operations in 2007 the mother-of-one was in such agony that she agreed to undergo further surgery in June last year despite being told it could prove fatal.

Mrs Corton spent more than 10 hours in surgery at Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham, central England, but died from massive blood loss.

Doctors who first saw her at Lincoln County Hospital and Grantham hospital, both in central England, were slammed for "serious errors".

Recording a narrative verdict, West Lincolnshire coroner Stuart Fisher, said: "It was a significant foreign object. It is difficult to imagine anything more significant."

Mrs Corton's husband, Peter, 61, is taking legal action against United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust.

He said after today's hearing: "OK she was drunk but they didn't take her seriously. She showed them the wound but they didn't do a proper examination.

"I think it was probably down to the hospitals trying to save money and doing things as cheaply as possible."

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