A university student died after being crushed by her own car on an icy, sloped driveway that lacked safety barriers, a coroner has found.
Eleisha Skinner, 21, an aspiring social worker from Faversham, Kent, was a student at Buckinghamshire New University.
Ms Skinner had returned from the Christmas break and was unloading her black Audi A1 outside her High Wycombe accommodation on January 4.
The inquest heard that she had reverse parked the vehicle on the sloped driveway. As Ms Skinner retrieved items from the rear of the car, it “slipped” on the treacherous surface, pinning her against a wall outside the property.
Another resident at the accommodation called emergency services after he heard a “bang”, a woman “scream” and shouts of “get off, get off” before finding Ms Skinner unconscious, the inquest heard.
Police officers at the scene noted that the “sloped” driveway was covered in ice after wintry weather, making it “very slippery”, senior coroner Crispin Butler told Buckinghamshire Coroner’s Court on Tuesday.
But the driveway had not been salted or gritted and Mr Butler said there was no barrier or railings in place to stop “overrun”.
The coroner said he will write to the owners of the accommodation, Howarth Property, whom the inquest heard has since installed railings, so that they can set out what has been done to mitigate the safety of the driveway.
The firm wrote in a letter to the coroner that professional inspections of the property determined that the driveway was assessed as safe, the inquest heard.
But Mr Butler issued a prevention of future deaths report to Howarth Property amid concerns that an “incident could arise where another individual could die”.
The firm has 56 days to say what action had been taken.
Ms Skinner’s car was in neutral, had “no defects” and the handbrake was “fully up”, the inquest heard.
She was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford but died on January 8.
A medical examination found that she died from anoxic brain injury due to asphyxia compression, meaning pressure on her body prevented her from breathing properly.
Mr Butler wrote in his record of inquest: “On balance, the incident appears to have occurred as a result of Eleisha’s vehicle slipping after having been parked with the handbrake on and dropping off the rear of the driveway, at a time when the boot was open and Eleisha was behind the car in the process of unloading.
“It was a very cold night with frost on frozen snow, which made the inclined drive very slippery.
“There were no railings or other barrier or obstacle to prevent a vehicle over-run from the drive, nor was there evidence that the driveway had been salted or gritted.”
Ms Skinner, who had been crowned “Miss Faversham” in 2022 and later “Miss Congeniality”, was described by her family in a statement read by Mr Butler as “kind, selfless and passionate young woman, who always put others before herself”.
They spoke of Ms Skinner’s “fun, bubbly personality” which meant “she was always the life and soul wherever she went” and said that she was the “kind of person who made the world brighter just by being in it”.
Their statement added: “We will carry her with us always, our beautiful Eleisha, forever loved, forever missed and never forgotten.”
Buckinghamshire New University said Ms Skinner would be awarded a posthumous BSc with honours in social work, the inquest heard.
