A young father collapsed and died after suffering an allergic reaction to a takeaway beefburger.

Mark Nicholson, 28, made a 999 call from his Brighton hotel room begging for help after his throat swelled up and he was left struggling to breathe.

But he was unable to tell the operator which room he was in, and by the time paramedics had tracked him down he was dead.

An inquest into his death at Brighton Coroner’s Court yesterday heard the self-employed glazier had a long-standing allergy to peanuts but had never suffered a serious reaction.

On the night he died, Mr Nicholson had been in Brighton to seal a business deal and went out to celebrate with friend Andy Webster.

The pair finished the night by eating chilli burgers at Favourite Kebab, in Preston Street, before returning to the Ramada Jarvis hotel on the seafront.

But just minutes after heading back to his room in the early hours of August 1, Mr Nicholson raised the alarm.

A transcript of the 999 call was read out by coroner’s officer Jane Ritchie, during which Mr Nicholson told the operator he needed an “epi-pen”, a self-administered shot of adrenaline.

The operator then asked which room he was in. Unsure, Mr Nicholson went to check the door – but collapsed before he got back to the phone. Police, hotel workers and paramedics then desperately called phones and knocked on doors in the 123-room hotel to try and find Mr Nicholson.

Eventually a hotel worker found an engaged tone, and the group found Mr Nicholson unconscious in that room.

Paramedics were unable to revive him and Mr Nicholson was pronounced dead at the Royal Sussex County Hospital.

The inquest heard from pathologist Dr Anthony Williams, who said he believed Mr Nicholson had suffered a reaction to an ingredient in the chilli burger which may have derived from peanuts. He said Mr Nicholson’s history of asthma could have been a contributing factor.

Brighton and Hove Coroner Veronica Hamilton-Deeley, registered the cause of death as “anaphylactic shock due to an allergic reaction to food (known peanut allergy)”.

Recording a verdict of misadventure, she described his death as a “sudden and tragic loss”.

Miss Hamilton-Deeley added: “This is not a man who stupidly disregarded warning signs. He behaved entirely sensibly and appropriately throughout the evening but suffered what was an unheralded reaction.”

Mr Nicholson, from Leicester, leaves his partner Emma Wilton and young daughter Ellie.