Tributes to ‘wonderful’ woman who died after inhaling bleach fumes as she cleaned bathroom
She mixed two cleaning products which then sparked a reaction and created a deadly gas.
Tributes have been paid to a woman who died after accidentally inhaling bleach fumes as she cleaned her bathroom at home.
Leah Seymour, 34, who went by the name Celia, had mixed two cleaning products together on July 19, sparking a reaction which then produced gas. This caused her to suffer a severe asthma attack, and she was placed in an induced coma. She died four days later.
She worked as the manager of Atlantico Hand Car Wash, in Betchworth, with the owner Peter Seferi now changing the company’s name to Celia’s Hand Car Wash in her honour. He had been on his way to Ms Seymour’s house when she told him she was ‘just running upstairs to bleach the bathroom’.
He said: ‘I got there in less than five minutes, the smell was powerful, I could feel it in my chest. We went outside and we were talking like normal.’
Ms Seymour then started struggling to breathe, and Mr Seferi called for an ambulance, while giving her CPR as he waited for it to arrive. Paying tribute to his colleague, he said: ‘I could not say a bad thing about that girl.’
He went on: ‘She was wonderful. We have got a memorial book here for her and people who were strangers have come in and left flowers for her. We are speechless really.
‘If you called her at three in the morning saying you needed help, she would be there. She would go out of her way to help anyone.
‘I don’t feel like coming to work any more; I just feel like I am looking [around], like “where is she?” I just can’t come to terms with it. When my first child was born it was me and her who went to collect my wife and son, she was like my right-hand person.’
Ms Seymour’s mum, Julie Felon, said the fire service confirmed her daughter had used two cleaning products, thought to be a bleach and a toilet cleaner, that reacted in the bathroom.
She has now pleaded with others not to make similar mistakes. She went on: ‘I am still in a state of disbelief. I can’t believe she has gone. She was only just starting her life and it was taken away from her.’
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Describing Ms Seymour as ‘car-mad’, she told how her daughter had turned her life around since joining Mr Seferi’s business. She continued: ‘I have seen a great change in her since she met Peter and the team.
‘She turned into a more responsible person and did come across the most happy she had been in years. I really appreciate everything they did for her.’
An inquest into Miss Seymour’s death was opened and adjourned on Tuesday.
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