A young woman bled to death after a junior doctor on a shift botched the insertion of a needle into her abdomen.
Emme Godiff, 28, needed fluid drained from around her internal organs but the "kinked" needle failed to work and damaged the inside of her stomach area.
Her condition deteriorated and a scan revealed severe bleeding which failed to clot, and she died the following day as a result of internal bleeding. She had sent a WhatsApp message to her grandmother, saying: "I’m not letting another student touch me."
Salford Royal Infirmary has now admitted the mistake following an inquiry but told an inquest into her death last May that there had been "less staff" on duty because it was a Saturday. The case comes amid concern about higher death rates in the NHS at weekends.
Godiff, from Longsight, Manchester, had been admitted on May 5 with a chest infection after complaining of stomach pains and swelling.
On May 17 a "drain" needle was successfully inserted into her stomach region to relieve fluid around her organs, the hearing was told. On Saturday May 20 a junior doctor attempted to insert a second drain under the supervision of a senior colleague.
As a result of what the hearing was told was a "kink", no fluid was released from her stomach. Although a senior doctor successfully inserted the needle three hours later, the bleeding was only detected at 3am on May 21 by a CT scan, carried out after she continued to complain of stomach pains. She died later that day.
Her grandmother Nora Summers, 73, told the hearing in Bolton she received a message "about a student nurse stabbing her with the drain and doing it wrong".
A post-mortem examination showed that Miss Godiff’s liver was not functioning properly because of her drinking. The cause of death was given as abdominal wall peritoneal haemorrhage.
Pathologist Steven McGrath told the hearing: "It was a very unusual pattern of bleeding and the most likely cause is the insertion of a needle into the abdominal walls."
He said Godiff’s blood did not clot properly as a complication of her liver disease.
Dr Christian Booth, an intensive care consultant, said staff did all they could to save the patient. But he added: "On the balance of probabilities, without the kinked drain Emme would not have died."
Consultant Adam Robinson, who led the hospital investigation, concluded that nothing else could have been done to save Miss Godiff because she was so ill.
Recording a narrative verdict, assistant coroner Susan Duncan said: "Emme died as a consequence of a rare but recognised complication of an abdominal paracentesis procedure exacerbated by and against a background of alcohol related liver disease. She was a very poorly young woman."