According to Mirror(1/9/2014)stated that, A taxi DRIVER killed by falling masonry was working in high winds so she could buy her partner a birthday present.
Mum-of-three Julie Sillitoe, 49, was killed on Valentine’s Day when large pieces of building debris fell from a building in High Holborn, London, crushing her.
An inquest today heard her two passengers only narrowly escaped with their lives, after the chunks of cement fell just centimetres from their heads.
Her widower Steve Sillitoe choked back tears as he told St Pancras Coroner’s Court how he pleaded with his wife not to go to work because of the bad weather.
But she shrugged off his concerns and went out to work as normal at around 8pm.
He said: “She came up and said ‘I’m going to go to work now’. It was very windy outside, it was bad weather. I said to her ‘Do you have to go to work? Why don’t you take the night off?’
“She said ‘I have to go to work, I have to buy your birthday present’.”
Mr Sillitoe later sent his wife a text saying he loved her, and she complained that it was very windy.
That night she picked up a young couple in her taxi at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant Bread Street Kitchen in the City, but as they drove through High Holborn shortly after 11pm large pieces of cement fell from a building, crushing her Skoda Octavia.
Ms Sillitoe, from Finsbury in north London, had to be cut from the wreckage but attempts to resuscitate her failed and she died at the scene from “devastating” head injuries.
Shortly after 1am in the morning police knocked at Mr Sillitoe’s door to deliver the devastating news.
He paid tribute to his “fun loving” wife, who was looking forward to becoming a grandmother for the second time.
He said: “She was extremely family orientated – with her granddaughter and her sons. Shortly before she learnt that (her son) Ben’s partner was pregnant again with a girl, which she was overjoyed at.”
He added: “It is a number of months since Julie was killed, and every single day I miss her very much.”
Luke Fitton told how he and his girlfriend Bo Houtenbos had been on their way home after enjoying a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner out when the rubble hit their taxi.
A large piece of concrete landed on his chest, crushing him, and he was in “complete agony”.
Paramedics, police and an air ambulance rushed to the scene and he was cut out of the wreckage and treated.
Speaking about the impact the tragedy had on him and his girlfriend, Mr Fitton said: “For myself and my girlfriend, it has changed our lives so much in terms of appreciation that we were lucky in that situation.
“It makes you reflect and we are saddened that all three of us weren’t able to come away from this experience.”
Through tears, Mr Sillitoe asked if Mr Fitton thought his wife’s death would have been sudden.
Looking at the family sat in the front row of court, Mr Fitton replied: “I think it would have been instant.
“It landed within centimetres of my face. It was just so overwhelming there is no way it could have been anything other than that.”
The inquest, which is being heard by a jury of four men and seven women, continues.
Source and credit to Mirror.co.uk
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