Despite the intial optimism of her doctors, an Englishwoman who died after her livery cycle collided with a bus last August had no chance of surviving the accident, an inquest into her death heard this week.

Mrs. Susan Cormack, 47, suffered serious head and chest injuries when her bike slammed into an eastbound bus in the Scaur Hill area of Sandys on the afternoon of August 10.

A mother of two, Mrs. Cormack died in the intensive care unit of King Edward VII Memorial Hospital a day later.

On Thursday, Dr. John Winnick of the hospital's histology department told the inquest that the Briton died when her thoracic aorta, which received a severe blow in the crash, ruptured after surgery.

The thoracic aorta, he told Magistrate the Wor. Cheryl-Ann Mapp, is shaped like a horseshoe and can snap when pressure is applied to each end.

The doctor said that any damage to the area is difficult to recognise and therefore untreatable until the aorta breaks.

He added that Mrs. Cormack's survival would have depended on her transfer to a specialised facility in the United States.

"That (the transfer) would have taken at least 10 hours,'' Dr. Winnick testified. "She could not have survived.'' Mrs. Cormack, who was visiting Bermuda with her husband and two children, became the 10th road fatality of 1994.