A MOTHER of seven who struggled with lockdown was killed when she was struck by a train.

An inquest heard today (Wednesday) that Sammi-Jo Edwards, 41, had just started a cleaning job in a pub when she was furloughed in March.

Her partner Jamie Cullingham said after that she "spent all of her time at home".

He added that Sammi-Jo "struggled with lockdown" and said she "always liked a drink".

He revealed to the inquest in Taunton that the former carer's drinking increased quite drastically.

He said: "She was drinking 14 to 15 cans of lager most days.

"Some days she would drink even more than that. Some days she would have nothing at all."

On the day she died in June, she started drinking first thing in the morning and downed 15 cans of lager during the day.

In the evening she left the family home in Wellington, taking £20 and a key with her.

Sammi-Jo and her partner both had two children from previous relationships and three between them, the inquest was told.

Her daughter rang her and Sammi-Jo was on a railway bridge and she raised the alarm.

By the time members of the family arrived at the scene at the Westford crossing, a train had struck and killed her.

Mr Cullingham said she had left no note or text messages to her family and he did not believe she had deliberately ended her own life even though she was "not in a good place".

Her neighbour and friend Karen Kingdom said she made a series of calls to a crying Sammi-Jo when she was by the railway.

She said she pleaded with her distressed friend to come home and asked her to think about her children, but Sammi-Jo kept hanging up.

Karen jumped in her car and headed for the railway and heard on the phone the sound of a horn in the background.

Train driver Matthew Sutton said he was driving a ten-car train from Exeter when he glimpsed a movement ahead on the side of the track.

He said: "I quickly realised it was a person who appeared to be squatting, crouching down, clear of the line but posing an extreme danger. They seemed to rocking backwards and forwards."

He used his emergency brakes and was unsure whether the train had struck the woman saying: "I didn't feel a bump and I wasn't sure if I had struck anyone."

A post mortem said she died from multiple traumatic injuries and toxicology showed she was more than three times the legal drink drive limit.

The senior Somerset coroner Tony Williams ruled out suicide and recorded a narrative conclusion.

He said: "Sammi-Jo Edwards was struck by a train but her intention at that time has not been established."

When the tragedy happened, Mr Cullingham described Sammi-Jo as "one in a million".

"She was sprinkled with a sackload of stardust," he said.

He said at the time: "She was very caring, always worried about everyone else, very outgoing.

"She never discussed her own problems, she was more concerned for other people."

He believed her death was an accident saying: "It seems the train came along, she stood up, stumbled and put her arms out, hitting the side of the train."