POLICE are investigating the “unexplained” death of a teenage girl found hanged in a house in west Suffolk.

Laurence Cawley

POLICE are investigating the “unexplained” death of a teenage girl found hanged in a house in west Suffolk.

The emergency services were called to Bury Road, Brandon, at around 11pm on Tuesday night after the alarm was raised about the girl, who was both unconscious and not breathing.

The first to arrive was the East of England Ambulance Service, which dispatched a first responder to the scene followed by two separate ambulance crews.

But despite desperate attempts to resuscitate the teenager, she was pronounced dead later in hospital.

It is understood the teenager had been housed in Suffolk by Essex County Council's fostering team and police have confirmed they are working with the local authority in piecing together the circumstances surrounding her death.

A spokeswoman the ambulance service said they were alerted to the girl's plight by somebody on a mobile telephone and said their first responder got to the scene within five minutes.

She said the girl was unconscious and not breathing when they arrived and said paramedics tried to get her breathing again during the drive to West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds.

She went into cardiac arrest - when the heart stops pumping blood around the body - as she arrived at hospital.

“They kept working on her on the way to hospital and that would have carried on in accident and emergency,” the ambulance spokeswoman said.

A police spokeswoman said: “We were called at 11.06pm last night by the ambulance service which was treating a 16-year-old female at an address in Bury Road, Brandon.

“The female was taken to the West Suffolk Hospital where she died in the early hours of this morning.

“The death is not being treated as suspicious. Suffolk Constabulary will be carrying out further inquiries into this death with partner agencies.”

Essex County Council refused to confirm whether it had put the girl up for fostering. A spokeswoman said: “We are currently working with the police and at this stage it would be inappropriate to comment any further.”

The coroner's office has been informed of the girl's death and an inquest into her death is expected in due course.