16-Year-Old Girl Dies After Withholding Bowel Movement for 2 Mos.

Emily Titterington, 16, suffered from toilet phobia and went for eight weeks without going to the bathroom.

Her bowel expanded too much, which compressed her chest cavity and displaced her organs.

According to The Independent, Emily had died from a heart attack. She had mild autism and had been having bowel problems for the most part of her life.

The family's general practitioner, Dr. Alistair James, said that the cause has been unclear as the teen refused to be medically examined, even at the request of her mother, Geraldine.

The report adds that Dr. James had not been able to examine Emily's abdomen but he did prescribe her with laxatives.

"Had I done so, we would be having a different conversation. Her death could have been avoided with the right treatment at the right point," he said in the report.

In the post-mortem examination, Emily's bowel was described as having "massive extension," according to Telegraph.

When forensic pathologist Dr. Amanda Jeffery was asked by Coroner Dr. Emma Carlyon to describe the examination of Emily's body, she said, "It was like nothing I've ever seen before - it was dramatic."

Paramedic Lee Taylor was with student paramedic Lisa Marie Edwards when they were called a second time to the home of Emily at St. Austell, Cornwall.

He said, at the inquest of the teen's death, that they attended the family's home twice at the night of Emily's death.

"When we arrived her father James was outside shouting at us to help, saying something had gone badly wrong," he said in the Telegraph report.

He added that Emily was found lying in the doorway of the bathroom and as Mrs. Titterington moved away, he could see that the teen's abdomen was enlarged and that he was surprised to see that the "lower ribs had been pushed out further than her pubic bone."

Speaking to PEOPLE, Dr. Carey Strom, senior associate of Tower Digestive Health Medical Group, said he was not convinced that the cause of Emily's death was a heart attack.

"She's not having a heart attack from constipation," he told the magazine. "If somebody's that distended, they can have something where the vagus nerve slows the heart down, called the vasovagal effect, but there's more than meets the eye here. She probably had some electrolyte abnormality, or a cardiac arrhythmia from something else."