Lilly Angel Rodgers, an 11-year-old from Newton Abbot, Devon, died after a sharp branch concealed in mud pierced her chest while she was playing with friends on the mud flats at Wacker Quay, near Torpoint in Cornwall.

The accident happened on August 16, 2025. Lilly had stayed overnight at a friend’s house. The next day she went to the popular riverside spot on the River Lynher with two friends, the friends’ mother and the mother’s partner. The adults set up a barbecue and kept the children in sight, about 50 metres from the shore. The girls slid down a muddy bank, crawled “commando-style” and played starfish, as they had done there many times before.

Lilly was sliding headfirst when she suddenly stood up, clutched her chest, gasped and collapsed into the mud. Adults tried to reach her. Emergency crews, including ambulance teams visible in photographs of the night-time response, arrived. Because of the soft mud, meaningful CPR could not begin until a coastguard search-and-rescue helicopter lifted her to dry land — a process that took about 40 minutes. She was taken to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth and pronounced dead.

A post-mortem by Dr James Garvican, consultant pathologist at the Royal Cornwall Hospital, found a 7-centimetre penetrating wound near the top of her ribcage. The hidden branch or pointed root had severed a pulmonary artery. Cause of death was recorded as penetrating chest trauma. “It’s extremely bad luck,” Dr Garvican told the inquest. “Half an inch to the right and it would just have glanced off her ribcage and left a bruise and a scratch. Half an inch to the left and it may still have gone in, but it would not have damaged vital organs. This was not a survivable injury.”

Andrew Cox, senior coroner for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, concluded that the death was accidental. “There was nothing suspicious. In the circumstances it was the most truly, desperately and unlikely accident. Lilly slid on a branch with a sharp point that had been covered by the mud.” He noted that she had been supervised and that the children knew the location well.

Lilly was described as a fit, active child who loved surfing, climbing, camping and paddle-boarding. Friends and family remembered her as outdoor-loving and full of energy. The inquest, heard in Truro in September 2026, closed with no further action recommended.

Sources
New York Post; Cornwall Live; Daily Mail; The Sun; Daily Star; upday News.