A WOMAN'S death just minutes after waking up on her 60th birthday will never be solved, an inquest heard.

Shop assistant Shirley Lewis collapsed and died at her home in Risingham Mead, Westlea, moments after husband Ron brought her a birthday card, the hearing at Swindon police station was told.

The couple had been planning a new life in Tenerife after retirement.

During the previous two weeks, she had repeatedly consulted doctors, complaining of bronchitis and then of stomach pains, diarrhoea and vomiting.

A post mortem after her death last December 3 found evidence of bronchitis and gastro-enteritis, but no apparent cause of death.

After the inquest held yesterday, assistant deputy Wiltshire and Swindon Coroner Nigel Brookes found that Mrs Lewis died of natural causes.

He said: "There is a school of thought that if it can't be shown that a death is unnatural, then it must be natural.

"There are no suspicious circumstances, there is no evidence of drugs, and there is simply nothing that can put this death into the realm of unnatural death."

Pathologist, Dr Jeanette Armstrong, who carried out the post mortem on the day after Mrs Lewis' death, said the case was among two per cent dealt with by her profession in which no cause could be determined.

Ronald Lewis, a welder, recalled that he and his late wife had been planning to move to live in Tenerife after retiring.

For about a fortnight before her death, beginning when she was given antibiotics for suspected bronchitis, she had complained increasingly of severe, diarrhoea, vomiting and stomach pain.

Mr Lewis said his wife made several visits to the Ashington House surgery in Westlea, as well as receiving home visits.

He said his wife became weaker and weaker as the days went on.

She finally died on her 60th birthday, a few days after her last home visit from a doctor. Her eldest son, Darren, was visiting his parents at the time.

Mr Lewis added: "I had just taken her card in.

"She was just lying on the bed and she wanted to get up to go to the toilet but she just didn't have the strength.

"She was determined to get up. She got up and she just collapsed."

Father and son recalled that Mrs Lewis had suffered a severe bout of vomiting, and an ambulance was immediately called.

But by the time it arrived minutes later, Mrs Lewis was dead.