A BIRMINGHAM accountant has paid tribute to his wife, a retired doctor, who drowned while on a snorkelling holiday in Malaysia.

Usha Vijh, who had worked as a GP all her life, got into difficulties off the coast and by the time she was pulled out of the water had stopped breathing.

Her husband, Charanjit Vijh, told an inquest in Birmingham that his wife loved snorkelling and had gone out quite far into the sea on March 16 last year.

He said she had signalled that she was in trouble and that someone at the resort had gone out in a dinghy and pulled her out and that attempts were made to revive her, but there was no sign of a pulse.

She was later taken to hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Assistant deputy coroner Michael Snell said a post-morten indicated that the 67-year-old woman had died from drowning and recorded that her death was the result of an accident.

After the hearing, Mr Vijh, of Creynolds Lane, Solihull, said he and his wife had been on a six-week holiday.

He said his wife had previously snorkelled on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and that it was the last day of their trip.

Mr Vijh said his wife had a practice near Sparkhill and used to work in Sheldon and, although she had retired when she was 61, still did locum work.

“She loved to snorkel and we went to many different places. She had her own equipment and would go out and follow fish,” he said.

“When the post-mortem report said she had died from drowning, I could not believe it. I thought it must have been a heart attack.”