A PENSIONER suffered a fatal stroke after he was knocked off his bicycle by a woman opening her car door, an inquest has heard.

Mark Lord

A PENSIONER suffered a fatal stroke after he was knocked off his bicycle by a woman opening her car door, an inquest has heard.

Karl Plessner, 84, from Aldeburgh, died in hospital two weeks after the accident near the town's cinema on August 29 last year.

The accident happened when he collided with the door of a car which had just been opened by motorist Kimberley O'Brien.

At an inquest held in Lowestoft yesterday, Coroner Dr Peter Dean said Mr Plessner had suffered a haemorrhage as a result of the accident which was successfully “evacuated”. But the pensioner then suffered a second stroke on the same side of the head and died on September 11.

Dr Dean said it was impossible to say that the second stroke could be directly attributed to the crash.

He recorded a narrative verdict of death “occurring from complications from a stroke against a background of a road traffic accident”.

Born in Poland in 1923 Mr Plessner had worked as a research scientist who conducted significant study into the development of optical fibres, essential to modern telecommunications and the internet.

Following the accident, motorist O'Brien, 22, of Saxmundham Road, Snape appeared before magistrates in Lowestoft, where she pleaded guilty to the charge of “opening a car door so as to injure/endanger a person” and was fined £200.