DELAYS in getting a teenager suffering with severe head injuries from a car crash near Worcester to a specialist hospital did not contribute to his death, an inquest has ruled.

Instead senior doctors have been praised for doing everything possible to keep Ashley Attwood alive after the car he was travelling in left the A4103 Worcester to Hereford road and crashed into a bridge at Bransford on Wednesday, July 3 last year.

The crash instantly killed his friend and driver of the green Ford Fiesta Timothy Evans, aged 17, of Home Firth Close, Hereford.

Mr Attwood's mum, Julie, of Hinton Rise, Hereford, said: "Our questions have been answered and we just want to thank all of the hospital staff at Worcestershire Royal Hospital and North Staffordshire Hospital. He was well cared for and we are very grateful."

We reported on this website earlier today how questions had been asked about whether a four-hour delay in finding an empty bed at a hospital with a specialist neurosurgical unit could have contributed to Mr Attwood's death.

After a scan revealed the college student would need specialist monitoring phone calls were made to hospitals as far away as Oxford and Cardiff after units in Birmingham and Coventry told doctors at Worcester they were full.

However, in Stourport-on-Severn today the inquest heard from Dr Howard Brydon, a neurosurgical consultant, who said even if Mr Attwood had been transferred to his hospital in Stoke within 30 minutes of the crash he would have still died.

"I don't think anything could have been done that would've saved him," he said.

"There was a delay in relaying him to Stoke which was less than ideal but he was stable when he left Worcester and he was stable when he arrived at Stoke.

The first reading we took was satisfactory so if he had arrived earlier I don't think we could have done anything different."

Dr Brydon told the inquest that it was only once Mr Attwood's condition deteriorated about an hour and a half after his arrival that a decision was made to conduct an undesirable operation to relieve the pressure on his brain which involved taking away part of the skull.

Despite those efforts Mr Attwood died from severe brain injuries in hopsital on Saturday, January 6.

County coroner Geriant Williams said: "Mr Attwood was in a motor car which crashed. He survived that crash but was dreadfully, and in my judgement, fatally injured in that crash.

"He received in the few days that followed medical care of the highest professional quality from a number of senior clinicians and consultants but the injuries he sustained in the crash were such that he was never going to survive."

A verdict of accidental death was recorded.