{"id":137110,"date":"2025-09-14T17:07:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T17:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/137110\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T17:07:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T17:07:12","slug":"police-launch-investigation-after-care-home-resident-45-dies-after-choking-on-cupcake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/137110\/","title":{"rendered":"Police launch investigation after care home resident, 45, dies after choking on cupcake"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"author-section byline-plain\">By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/profile-3381\/jose-ramos.html\" class=\"author\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">JOSE RAMOS, NEWS REPORTER<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"byline-section\"> Published:  07:22 EDT, 14 September 2025   |  Updated:  07:28 EDT, 14 September 2025   <\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Police are investigating after a care home resident choked to death on a cupcake topped with a marshmallow.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Alexander Ballmann, 45, suffered from a rare genetic disorder that caused swallowing difficulties.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">He collapsed after eating the cake at Sandsground Care Home in Highworth, Wiltshire, on October 31 last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">He was revived by medics and taken to hospital, but was placed in palliative care and died the following day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">A post-mortem found he suffered brain damage caused by a cardiac arrest after choking.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">A police spokesperson confirmed: &#8216;We are investigating the death of Alexander Ballmann which is currently being treated as unexplained.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">They added: &#8216;The care home involved is actively assisting with the investigation and the staff members directly involved have been spoken to by officers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;Mr Ballmann&#8217;s family are being supported by specially trained officers at this difficult time.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-78c8bc3aafe1939\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/102121339-15096989-image-a-1_1757848134176.jpg\" height=\"432\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Mr Ballmann collapsed after eating the cake at Sandsground Care Home in Highworth, Wiltshire, above, on October 31 last year\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\" aria-label=\"To enrich screen reader interactions, please activate Accessibility in Grammarly extension settings\">Mr Ballmann collapsed after eating the cake at Sandsground Care Home in Highworth, Wiltshire, above, on October 31 last year<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">A spokesperson at the home said they were unable to comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">A forensic post-mortem has been held, and the inquiry has already lasted nearly 11 months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">A poignant tribute in a local paper said: &#8216;To my brother Miss you always Nicola.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Mr Ballmann died on November 1 last year, but details have only just been made public with the opening of the inquest into his death at Salisbury, Wiltshire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The cause of death was hypoxic ischemic Encephalopathy caused by cardiac arrest resuscitated following choking on food in an individual with cornelia de lange syndrome<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The inquest was adjourned to a date to be fixed.<\/p>\n<p>                    Share or comment on this article:<br \/>\n                        Police launch investigation after care home resident, 45, dies after choking on cupcake<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By JOSE RAMOS, NEWS REPORTER Published: 07:22 EDT, 14 September 2025 | Updated: 07:28 EDT, 14 September 2025&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[97,59,50,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-137110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}