Tragedy as Portsmouth builder, 21, died after falling down the stairs following a night out celebrating a pay rise, inquest hears

Samuel Tutton, 21, was staying with friends after going on a night out in Portsmouth to celebrate a pay rise from work.

The accident happened as he got out of bed at roughly 4.30am to go to the toilet.

He tripped on a child stair gate and fell down a flight of stairs.

The Portsmouth inquest heard that Mr Tutton had drunk two beers and shared a pitcher-and-a-half of cocktails while out with his girlfriend, Autumn Mason, and two friends.

He continued to drink when they returned to the flat until he went to bed at about 3am.

Ms Mason told the hearing that Mr Tutton, from Southsea, had taken four ibuprofen tablets before going to bed.

She said he had been ‘swaying’ but was not ‘excessively’ drunk after 11 hours of ‘sociably drinking’.

Ms Mason added that he woke her up to go to the toilet and she saw him struggling to open the stair gate.

She said: ‘I started to get up to help him and as I stood he hit his foot on the gate causing him to trip.

‘I saw him falling, he looked panicked with his arms in the air, then I couldn’t see him and heard two massive bangs.

‘I shouted again and ran out of the front room and saw a glimpse of Sam at the bottom of the stairs.’

Ms Mason described how he had a nose bleed and they started to perform CPR as he was not breathing.

Mr Tutton’s mum, Dawn Staker, said her son was ‘hard-working’ and had just been given a pay rise in his new job for a building and maintenance firm.

She said: ‘Everything was falling into place for my lovely son, he was in a happy relationship with his girlfriend; Sam was in such a happy place.

‘He went out to celebrate his pay rise and his best friend being on leave from the Royal Marines.’

Coroner Samantha Marsh said Mr Tutton was taken to Southampton General Hospital, where he was assessed to have suffered an ‘unsurvivable injury’ to his brain – with haemorrhage and cardiac arrest as contributing causes of his death.

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Recording a verdict of accidental death, she said: ‘This is such a tragic, tragic case for a young man that was only 21 years old, a very happy man whose life was just starting out and everything was falling into place.

‘Unfortunately tragedy has struck.

‘It is the first time that Sam had been in the flat and there are baby protective measures that Sam wasn’t overly familiar with.

‘He was tipsy but not completely annihilated and having the effects of the drinking when he has taken a trip, unfortunately caught his foot, tumbled over the baby gate causing him to tumble down the stairs.

‘He hasn’t been able to stop his fall down that entire flight of stairs.

‘The injuries he suffered were entirely incompatible with life.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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