The two sisters of a man whose body parts went missing after an autopsy both sobbed as they gave evidence at an inquest into his death yesterday.

Marion Bishop and Heather Carberry believe their brother Norman Palmer's organs and tissues were stolen after he died at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital (KEMH) on April 12 last year.

Ms Carberry, of Somerset, England, told the hearing she could not get over the "horrible way" he died or the "feeling of sheer horror and the absolute grief of my brother being mutilated in this way".

"The question is: who mutilated my brother and took his organs and where are they?" she asked.

The former nurse was on the Island visiting her sister and brother last April when Mr. Palmer got into difficulty breathing.

His wife Kathleen called an ambulance and Ms Carberry and she helped to lift the stretcher carrying him onto the ambulance when the medical crew were unable to, the inquest heard.

Ms Carberry went with Mr. Palmer, 57, to KEMH. She said he was not strapped into the ambulance and was "catapulted" into the air when the vehicle hit a kerb.

At the hospital, she said staff made her leave her brother, telling her they were going to carry out a life-saving tracheostomy, a surgical opening in his neck to open the airways.

"I looked at my brother who was staring at me, gasping for air, his arms outstretched," she told Coroner Khamisi Tokunbo. "I said, 'I'm not going to leave'. I was told they would not do it so I left. That was the last time I saw my brother alive. I don't believe they ever did a tracheostomy."

She added: "In my opinion, his death was absolutely inhuman. For me, I was forced to leave my brother as he reached out to me. I live with this every hour of the day."

Ms Bishop, of Paget, told how a British pathologist discovered her brother's organs were missing after he was flown back to the UK to be cremated. The mystery surrounding his body parts meant Mr. Palmer had to be buried, against his wishes.

Ms Bishop said she later had a meeting with funeral director Leon Amis, who embalmed her brother's body in Bermuda, and a subsequent telephone call from a woman at Amis Memorial Chapels asking for payment. "I said 'I'm not paying until I know what has happened to my brother's organs'," said Ms Bishop.

The hearing continues today.