Nearly four months after a U.K. mother called for an ambulance that never arrived, she and her teenage daughter were found dead in their Nottingham home—raising serious questions about emergency response failures and social care oversight.
Alphonsine Djiako Leuga, 47, and her daughter Loraine Choulla, 18, were discovered on May 21, 2024, in the Radford area of Nottingham. According to testimony shared this week at an inquest, Leuga had made a desperate call to emergency services on February 2, pleading, “Would you send an ambulance? Please come, please,” before the line went dead.
Leuga suffered from sickle cell anemia and had recently been discharged from the hospital after treatment for a respiratory infection. She had left early to care for her daughter, who had Down syndrome and was fully dependent on her.
Despite the mother giving her address and asking for help, emergency services never followed through. Susan Jevons, head of patient safety at East Midlands Ambulance Service, testified that the call was mistakenly treated as “abandoned” and subsequently closed. No ambulance was dispatched.
Pathologist Dr. Stuart Hamilton testified that both mother and daughter may have been dead “weeks to months” before they were discovered. Leuga’s cause of death was confirmed as pneumonia; the cause of death for Loraine remains “unascertained,” although Hamilton did not rule out dehydration or malnutrition.
The inquest also revealed that Leuga had increasingly isolated herself and her daughter in the years leading up to their deaths. She had withdrawn Loraine from school and refused contact with social services, fearing her daughter would be taken from her. Elvira Choulla, Leuga’s eldest daughter, said her mother had once been attentive and caring but became more withdrawn, even taking Loraine on unannounced trips abroad.
Elvira last saw them in November 2023 during a pleasant family meal. But when she returned to check on them in early 2024, the house was dark, and utilities had been shut off for months. She did not report them missing at the time, believing a friend’s claim that they’d been seen in February.
The full inquest, expected to last five days, is examining not only the cause of death but the systemic failures that may have contributed to the tragedy. Neither Nottingham Coroner’s Court nor East Midlands Ambulance Service have commented further.
The case has sparked renewed calls for improved emergency call handling, better follow-up protocols, and greater protections for vulnerable families who may fall through the cracks.
