A teenager's last words to her boyfriend as she waited for paramedics to take her to hospital were: "Babe, I love you. I'm going to die."

Kayleigh Kennard, 18, a nursing assistant who hoped to become a midwife, collapsed a week after having her tonsils out in a routine operation.

She died on February 17, after having a tonsillectomy at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath on February 9.

An inquest heard only one in 40,000 patients die following the procedure.

Coroner Roger Stone described the death as a "huge tragedy".

She had been feeling unwell following the operation, and had been prescribed painkillers by her GP.

The inquest heard Miss Kennard drove her parents Paul and Debbie to the railway station on Friday, February 16.

When she got back home to Heathfield Close, Mile Oak, she went for a lie-down.

Her boyfriend, hospital porter David King, described how he called an ambulance when he found her with blood pouring out of her mouth in their bedroom.

Miss Kennard's sister Chloe, ten, passed the 999 operator's instructions to him as he tried to help her breathe.

The coroner said they both deserved "great credit" for the help they gave her.

Paramedics arrived after seven minutes, and estimated she had produced about a pint and a half of blood.

The inquest heard blood found in her lungs during a post-mortem examination had probably been inhaled when the bleeding started.

This made it more difficult for her body to absorb oxygen when hospital staff tried to help her breathe.

Mr Stone said: "This has come as a huge tragedy out of what would otherwise be expected to be a normal routine situation.

"There is no suggestion the operation took place otherwise than in a normal fashion.

"No complications arose. A sudden and catastrophic haemorrhage has taken place almost out of the blue."

He said though Miss Kennard seemed to be breathing when Mr King was helping her, she probably suffered significant brain damage due to lack of oxygen while she was waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

He said: "She would probably not have been breathing in oxygen into her lungs, which may well have been compromised by the blood she inhaled in the early stages of vomiting."

The inquest at Worthing Town Hall today heard she had burst a blood vessel after the operation on her tonsils.

Miss Kennard had a heart attack in the ambulance on the way to Worthing Hospital, which the ambulance crew thought would be the quickest to reach.

She had another heart attack in the accident and emergency ward after she arrived.

Duncan Wong, a consultant ear, nose and throat surgeon, was called from the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton to operate on her in Worthing.

It took him 45 minutes to reach her as he made his way through Friday night traffic.

He removed a blood clot from her throat and stitched up a ruptured artery.

He said the bleeding could have been caused by an infection like a cold or flu.

Miss Kennard was taken to intensive care, but died the next day at 6.40pm.

Mr Stone, recording a narrative verdict, agreed with pathologist Dr Jeremy Grant's conclusion that she died of brain damage caused by her two heart attacks, which were caused by the haemorrhage which followed the tonsil operation.

Miss Kennard, a former Brighton, Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College student, worked at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

Her ambition was to become a midwife.

She decided to have the operation because regular bouts of tonsillitis had forced her to take time off work over the previous two years.

Speaking after the inquest, her mother Debbie praised the medical team who tried to revive her daughter.

She said: "Everyone at the hospital did what they could."

Mr Stone said the complications were "thankfully rare".

Miss Kennard was an organ donor, and the coroner thanked her family for allowing some of her organs to be removed.

Paying tribute to her daughter, Mrs Kennard said: "She always put everyone first."

The family has raised £7,000 for an incubator for the Trevor Mann Baby Unit at the Royal Sussex.

They hope eventually to have a room there named after her.

Pay your tributes to Miss Kennard below.