The mother of one of the Hillsborough victims has admitted that discovering that her son 'could have been saved,' almost killed her.
During a two-year inquest into the horrific event in which 96 fans lost their lives during an FA Cup semi-final in April of 1989, Margaret Aspinall discovered that her son James was covered by a jacket and left on the pitch after a police officer had performed CPR for little over a minute.
The heartbroken mother said:
"I did not know that nobody helped James. I knew somebody put a coat over his face but within ... 90 seconds [that] he done CPR, took his pulse, and yet he wasn't even in the recovery position - and he could have been saved."
The police officer insisted that he spent several minutes trying to rescue him while also stating that it was 'obvious' that Gary Aspinall was dead. The inquest however, heard that he performed CPR for at most - just over a minute.
Video footage showed James lying on the pitch, covered by a coat, as a St John ambulance worker, a supporter, and a police officer, all stepped over his body.
He was then transferred across the pitch on a hoarding. A 16-year-old who helped carry Mr Aspinall's body, said he thought that his face looked purple but 'couldn't be definite' that he was dead.
96 football fans died during the tie between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest when the terraces became overcrowded in the Lepping's Lane end of Hillsborough.
Today, the inquest found that all of the fans were unlawfully killed. Seven of the nine jurors agreed that those fans were unlawfully killed as a result of negligence by police. All 14 jurors agreed that fan behaviour did not cause the tragedy.
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