Schoolboy, 11, was killed when he fell off his scooter and landed on the handlebars after playing at a skatepark with friends, inquest hears

An 11-year-old schoolboy was killed after he fell off his scooter and landed on the handlebars, an inquest has heard.

Jakob Fairclough had been playing at a skatepark with friends and was fatally injured when he came off on a nearby footpath, a coroner was told.

The inquest heard that he landed on his side on the upturned handlebars, causing internal bleeding.

Witnesses said that the popular youngster's lips quickly turned blue, then white before he passed away despite the efforts of paramedics to save him.

The hearing in Salisbury was told that the accident took place on August 18 last year in his home town of Tidworth, Wiltshire.

A friend who was with him - who can't be identified for legal reasons - said they had been playing at the skate park together when his parents called him home.

The friend said that Jakob waved goodbye as he left, and after using the back wheel brake he fell from the pink and blue metal scooter.

The friend added: 'As he fell the handlebar faced the sky which landed on his side whilst his head and bum hit the floor.

'He was in pain and I could see him going yellow and his lips were blue. We all ran towards him but he collapsed.'

He was carried to a nearby car park where paramedics attempted to treat him.

The inquest heard that Jakob's scooter was missing its rubber handlebar grips and the impact had created a 'small golf ball sized bruise to his lower right chest'.

Rebecca Fairclough, Jakob's mother, said at the inquest: 'Jakob was a popular boy with lots of friends. He had been out with his dad [Warren] in the day and been his normal cheeky-chappy self.

'[He] loved his brother and sister, liked to go the skatepark, playing on his Xbox and football, [he] spent a lot of time at the skatepark, had lots of friends who played there of different ages, [he was] fairly confident on his scooter.'

Mrs Fairclough - who is a chef while husband Warren is a carpenter - said Jakob had gone out to the skatepark after dinner at home.

'[He] went back out for a short period of time,' she said. 'He left about six and [then] we had a call [90 minutes later] saying that he had fallen off his scooter and had collapsed several times.'

Ambulance staff said that when they arrived at the scene Jakob was having difficulty breathing.

'He was lying on the side of the road near the curb and was alert and responsive but occasionally screamed out in pain,' a report by South Western Ambulance Service said.

'However, he then became unresponsive. Initially his rate of respiration was raised so he was given oxygen by a high flow mask.

'He became unresponsive a minute before the ambulance crew arrived.'

Emergency medical technicians, Emily Hare and Nikita Duffin, were on the scene and added: 'He was lying on his left side in the recovery position. He said he wanted to go to sleep and was drifting in and out of consciousness.

'We felt that there was reduced entry into his lower right lung. He became tachycardic [having a heart rate over 100 beats per minute] with a weak pulse.'

He died at the scene just before 9pm that night.

The post-mortem, which was read by area coroner Ian Singleton, added further details of the schoolboy's injuries.

The post-mortem said: 'Jakob landed on the end of one handlebar causing his lips to turn blue then white.

'The shape of the bruise will be consistent with the handlebar end. In addition there was a 5cm laceration of the intercostal muscle between the 8th and 9th rib.'

A police investigation found no evidence that the scooter was defective and no reason why he would have fallen off.

Offering his 'deepest condolences' to his parents, Mr Singleton concluded that the cause of Jakob's death was the blunt force to the torso causing a haemorrhage.