Macclesfield FC gym manager’s inquest

An inquest into the death of Anna Ledgar, the gym manager at Macclesfield FC, reached its conclusion this week.

Anna Ledgar was on her way to the club when she was involved in a head-on car crash.

The 28-year-old was driving her Seat Leon along the B5030 Ashbourne Road, between Uttoxeter and Rocester, shortly before 1 pm on October 18.

Moments earlier, she had pulled out of a KFC drive-thru with a food order.

An inquest has heard that her car either drifted or swerved over the central white line and into the path of an oncoming Peugeot taxi.

The taxi driver, who was seriously injured, said that he heard a ‘massive bang’. The next thing he remembered was being in pain and seeing that he was bleeding heavily.

He said: “The collision happened on my side of the road and I had no chance at all to take evasive action.”

Other motorists came to both the drivers’ aid and called 999 – where paramedics found Anna unresponsive in the driver’s seat.

She was taken to the Royal Stoke University Hospital, where she died the following day from an ‘unsurvivable’ traumatic brain injury.

Anna had been on the organ donor register and her final act was to donate her organs to help save the lives of six other people.

Anna has been described by her partner Greg Peters as ‘amazing’ and his ‘perfect’ match.

Heartbreakingly, he was planning on proposing to her before her death.

Greg, who lived with Anna in Abbots Bromley, near Uttoxeter, arranged for a vicar to give a blessing and placed a ring on her finger when she was in her hospital bed.

The couple had spent the day before the crash enjoying a ‘perfect Sunday’.

Anna had only recently been headhunted by Macclesfield FC to become the club’s gym manager and was due to work a late shift on October 18.

Greg got up first at 6.30am and left for work, kissing goodbye to Anna as she remained in bed.

“She walked the dogs before going to work,” he said.

At 2.30 pm, he got a call to say she’d been involved in an accident and was in hospital.

Greg said he had ‘never known’ Anna to eat or drink while driving.

She had also taken food with her to eat later that day, so he was surprised to hear she had called at KFC.

Another motorist had also stopped at the drive-thru to order food at 12.37 pm.

She recalled seeing a woman in front of her collect a box at the window.

The same woman was then travelling several cars behind Anna when they both joined the B5030 and her attention was drawn to the Seat when it ‘went into the opposing lane’.

Another driver, approaching from the opposite direction, had to veer onto the grass verge to avoid a collision with Anna’s car.

In her rear view mirror, she then saw the crash with one of the vehicles ‘going up in the air’.

In a statement, the witness said: “I was in total shock at the time. If I hadn’t taken the action I did, the car would have hit me.

“She made no attempt to get out of the way.”

PC Sarah Mulvey, a forensic collision investigator, said there was no evidence of any braking before the impact or any obstruction on the road.

But food was found on the Seat’s airbag which was deployed on impact.

Acting South Staffordshire senior coroner Andrew Barkley said it ‘suggests very strongly’ that Anna was eating at the time of the crash.

He concluded that the death was due to a road traffic collision.

Paying tribute after her death, heartbroken Greg said: “Anna was just an amazing person. All she ever wanted was the best for people. She wanted to help people achieve their goals – in the gym or just in life.”