AN elderly woman who drowned in a park lake told a neighbour that she “wouldn’t be here at Christmas’’, an inquest heard yesterday.

Doris Sadler, 81, of Wordsworth Road, Darlington, died in the town’s South Park one evening last September and her body was found by a passer-by.

Her coat was draped over the back of a nearby park bench and firefighters found her aluminium walking stick when they dragged the lake.

Pathologist Dr Tony Sanadhira told the inquest at Chester-le-Street Magistrates’ Court that Mrs Sadler died of drowning, but had suffered a minor stroke within 24 hours of her death.

“It is quite possible that because of that she may have suffered a fit at the time,’’ he said.

Neighbour Greg Connelly said his wife supplied Mrs Sadler with meals and that six or seven months before her death she had an accident that left her with pain in her knee.

Mr Connelly said he sometimes had to carry her to the car and shortly before her death had to help her home after she had walked to the park to feed the birds.

He said: “In the 20 years we lived in Wordsworth Road, it was the first time she had gone to the park.

“She told the wife she wouldn’t be here at Christmas.

I told her doctor that she had said that. I thought she was very sincere in what she was saying.’’ Mr Connelly, who alerted police after hearing of a body being found in the lake and going to Mrs Sadler’s home and finding her not there, said he believed “she did it deliberately’’.

He added that she may not have gone through with the suicide on the first park visit because there were children about.

Passer-by Jose Sanchez told the inquest how he found the coat on the bench and then saw Mrs Sadler’s body in the lake.

“You couldn’t have fallen in the water from the bench. You would have to walk over and have a look in.’’ Detective Constable Jim Honeyman said there was no identification so police contacted residential homes and put out a press release in a bid to identify the body.

Police went to Mrs Sadler’s home after Mr Connelly contacted them and found the door unlocked and everything neat and tidy. He said there was no third party involvement.

Deputy County Durham Coroner Brenda Davidson recorded an open verdict, saying that the evidence did not point beyond all reasonable doubt to a suicide.

“The stroke may have interfered with her balance, it may have interfered with her behaviour. We just don’t know.’’ Without a witness who saw her enter the water, she could not say that Mrs Sadler’s death was not an accident.