A Southfields pensioner who was “loved by everyone that knew him” died after swallowing his wedding ring in hospital.

John Lopez did not realise where his ring had gone until staff at Queen Mary’s hospital in Roehampton performed an x-ray, an inquest heard on Thursday.

The 73-year-old, who had worn the gold bloodstone ring for 37 years since wedding his beloved wife, Iris, died several days later from a related infection.

Speaking outside Westminster Coroner’s Court, his wife Mrs Lopez, 75, said: “He was extremely well-loved by everyone who knew him.

"He had a wicked sense of humour and he was interested in an awful lot of things. We were very happy together. I’m absolutely devastated.”

Mr Lopez, a keen gardener and DIY enthusiast who had four grandsons, worked as a clerk and a manager at British Rail for 31 years.

The couple, from Lainson Street, married in 1973 and he looked after Mrs Lopez’s daughter, Wendy, now 53, as his own.

The inquest heard how Mr Lopez went to Queen Mary’s to be treated for a urinary tract infection, and lost his ring on November 29.

After he complained of abdominal pain, nurses put him on a soft diet – although through an administrative blunder he was fed breaded chicken and potatoes on one day, the court heard.

On December 1, a CT scan revealed the ring at the bottom of his oesophagus, but doctors decided to let it pass through his body naturally.

Two days later, when it remained in the same place, he was transferred to St George’s Hospital, Tooting, to have it removed via endoscopy.

But Mr Lopez died on December 5 at 6.10pm.

A postmortem examination suggested the ring was disrupting the passage of food and that some had travelled back up and into the lungs, causing an infection.

Dr Shirley Radcliffe, coroner at Westminster Coroner’s Court, said: “We cannot say for certain whether an early removal of the ring would have been better, but it seems to be that by the time he was removed for the endoscopy he wasn’t well enough to have it done.”

A verdict of accidental death was recorded, giving the cause of death as aspiration pneumonia because of an oesophageal obstruction.