‘Beautiful’ bride-to-be dies after riding bucking bronco at pub

Jessica Lally, 26, suffered a fatal heart attack after falling from the ride at an American-themed bar in Sheffield, England, in October.

Her heartbroken family has told how she climbed aboard the mechanical bull at the bar, Bronco’s Rodeo, The Sun reports.

Jessica then tumbled off into the padded area around it and went into cardiac arrest. Her death was not related to the ride, an investigation found.

Her mum Joan, 66, said Jessica had “not had a lot to drink” and had been out for a meal before deciding to visit the bar.

“I don’t know why she decided to go on it. She was just having fun I suppose,” she said.

“She’d just gone out for a night out and then we had police at the door at midnight.

“We’re still going through it now. Sometimes we still fall into pieces. It’s been heartbreaking.”

Jessica, who worked as a manager for jewellery company Pandora, had been planning to get married to her partner and had “her whole life ahead of her”.

“She was such a beautiful girl, so kind and funny,” Joan said.

“She’d got her whole life planned. They were going to get married.

“She always wrote these fantastic Christmas lists, but that year she’d just put: a house, a ring and a baby.”

The tragedy has rocked the local community in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, where she and her family are from.

More than 500 mourners attended the funeral – so many that they could not all fit in the church.

Relatives are now focusing their grief on campaigning for the installation of more defibrillators – a device which could have saved Jessica’s life.

A fundraiser has been set up in her name to help pay for the vital equipment.

“I went down to Rotherham United and the ambulance service were showing me how to use the defibrillator and, knowing that they were trying to do that with Jessica, it caught my imagination,” Joan said.

“I thought, ‘What a brilliant idea,’ because we haven’t really got any locally.

“It’s important. It’s a matter of life and death sometimes. It can save somebody’s life.”

Almost $19,000 has been raised so far, and Jessica’s cousin Michael Noone, 47, plans to boost the total by running 26 half marathons in 12 weeks – one for every year of her life.

Firefighter Michael says it is essential to have defibrillators on hand so that, if someone goes into cardiac arrest, they stand a better chance of surviving.

“They eventually did get a defib to help Jessica but there wasn’t one in the premises,” he said.

“I do believe there was a nurse in the bar she was in, so immediately she started to help her and they did eventually get a defib but, unfortunately, she passed away that night.

“It’s been awful really. It was just sudden.”

‘Passed all safety checks’

Bronco’s Rodeo general manager Christopher Brown said Jessica “appeared to suffer from a fit” and that the bull was “moving on the slowest speed”.

“From the CCTV, the lady in question appeared to be out having a good time with her friends and excited to ride the bull,” he said.

“She passed all of our safety checks before mounting the bull. She then, very quickly after the ride started, appeared to have lost consciousness sliding off under her own body weight.”

The venue closed for a week following Jessica’s death so staff could “recover from the shock” and to allow “police and the council [to] do their investigation”.

“The council’s investigation shows that the cause of death was not related to the bull and unfortunately we haven’t been given the official cause of death yet,” Mr Brown said.

This story first appeared on The Sun and has been republished with permission

Originally published as ‘Beautiful’ bride-to-be dies after riding bucking bronco at pub