A PENSIONER from Taunton who fell from a ladder after working on the roof of his garage died from heart failure during the subsequent operation in hospital, an inquest heard.

Retired carpenter Malcolm Waddon, 80, had been doing some work on his garage roof at his bungalow in Bishop’s Hull but during a spell of heavy rain, he realised water was seeping through.

He climbed a ladder on to the roof to fix the problem but on his way down he slipped and fell about seven feet.

The inquest heard how Mr Waddon managed to crawl into his garage to alert his wife who called an ambulance.

Mr Waddon was taken to Frenchay Hospital in Bristol with multiple fractures. He underwent surgery several days later but died on August 9.

His wife Jean told the inquest that her husband was a ‘jack of all trades’ and his son Melvin Waddon said his father would carry out jobs around the house on a regular basis.

Mrs Waddon said her husband was ‘full of beans’ the night before his operation and had told her ‘don’t go worrying about me, I feel fine’.

West Somerset coroner Michael Rose said, following a report from a pathologist, that Mr Waddon, who had one son and two sisters, did have underlying heart problems.

He added: “In the circumstances, I conclude Mr Waddon’s death was from natural causes of which an earlier fall from a ladder caused multiple fractures and the subsequent operation was a major contributing factor.

"These things [heart failure] can lay dormant and the extra stress of that [the operation] can bring them on.”