New mum had heart condition

Mar 20 2008 by Chris Robinson, The Journal

A NEW mother died as the result of an undetected heart condition minutes after being thrown from a bucking bronco ride in a Quayside bar on Tyneside.

Nailah Ishaq was celebrating her first night out after the birth of her daughter Kaiah six months earlier when the tragedy happed at Buffalo Joe’s, Gateshead, in July last year.

The 28-year-old, of Caesar Way, Wallsend, North Tyneside, converted to Islam after marrying husband Yaqoob two years ago.

It is believed she was born with heart abnormality hydrotropic cardiomyopathy but was unaware that she had the condition.

Mrs Ishaq, formally Nichola Clark and an art teacher at Heaton Manor School, Newcastle, had been with friends from her antenatal class at Newcastle’s Royal Infirmary on the night.

The group had been to Azzurri restaurant and the Waterline pub before heading to Buffalo Joe’s.

An inquest heard that she was the last of her friends to try the mechanical bull and was on the ride for around 30 seconds.

Less than 20 minutes later she had collapsed and stopped breathing.

In a letter read out during the inquest, friend Helen Ballantine said: “Nailah was on the ride for about 30 seconds and she was having fun. As it got faster, it threw her off and she fell on to the bouncy castle-type landing. She was laughing when she fell off and she seemed fine. Just 15 to 20 minutes after having been on the bull, I saw Nailah drop to the floor.

“Her knees buckled, her eyes rolled back and her mouth was open.

“Nothing that night indicated to me Nailah was not well.”

An off-duty policeman who was in the bar and a member of staff tried to save the mother-of-one but she later died at Newcastle General Hospital.

A post-mortem examination revealed she had only had a small amount of alcohol, 81mg in 100ml of breath, and had not taken any drugs or medication.

After her death, a health and safety investigation was launched by Gateshead Council although the machine, which had last been assessed weeks before the tragedy, was found to be working correctly and warning signs were displayed.

Environmental health officer Paul Anderson told the inquest that Buffalo Joe’s had been using the bull for six years and more than 500 people rode it each week with no reported incidents or injuries.

Coroner Karen Graham concluded that Mrs Ishaq had died of natural causes.