Desperate efforts were made to break down a Pitlochry hotel bathroom door to rescue a grandfather trapped in a bath of scalding water, a death inquiry has heard.
Wallace Hunter, 75, a retired precision engineer, died from third degree burns to
83% of his body in the incident at the Pitlochry Hydro Hotel.
Mr Hunter, from Eaglesham, Renfrewshire, had gone for a shower while his wife packed their bags on the final day of a coach trip to the hotel in December 2019.
A fatal accident inquiry at Alloa Sheriff Court, heard the bathroom door opened outwards, bolted on the inside, and had no exterior emergency release, as would be the case in new buildings.
A guest in the room below raised the alarm after seeing hot water “cascading” down the mirror of his own bathroom while shaving.
Hotel night porter Elena Cespedes, 58, said that when she received the call, she phoned the Hunters’ room to ask if they had left a tap running.
She said Mrs Hunter told her, “No, everything’s fine, everything’s perfect.”
Ms Cespedes said after finding another room for the guests below, she spent about 45 minutes searching the rest of the hotel in vain for sources of the leak.
Then she got another call from Mrs Hunter.
Ms Cespedes told the court Mrs Hunter then said, “Help, my husband is stuck in the bathroom and he has dementia.”
Ms Cespedes “immediately connected” the leak to the Hunters’ room.
She went to there and could hear Mr Hunter “moaning” from within the locked bathroom.
Other people arrived.
Desperate bid to open door
Ms Cespedes said: “I threw myself against the door.
“Someone was hitting the door with a fire extinguisher.
“I knocked on other doors saying, ‘Men, men, I need strong men to help me’.”
Someone produced a small crowbar and she went downstairs to look for “an axe or a chainsaw”.
She said: “Somebody said, ‘Lady you’ve watched too many American movies’.
“None of us could find anything big enough to destroy that door.”
She told procurator fiscal depute Gail Adair: “The sounds [from inside] became lower.
“I never stopped trying to get in.”
She said she decided to call the emergency services but Mrs Hunter said “don’t call them” and pushed her hand that was holding her mobile phone.
She told Mrs Hunter she had to call them and another woman said, “If you’re not calling them, I will.”
The guest who had reported the water pouring into his bathroom downstairs, Victor Aitken, 79, said he went upstairs when he heard the commotion.
He said: “The door to the bathroom was closed – it was solid.”
He tried to push and kick it open and to “bash” it in with a fire extinguisher.
He said: “The problem was it was hung to open out into the bedroom and the jamb was on the inside.
“All my efforts were futile because of the way the door was hung.”
Sheriff John MacRitchie, presiding, heard it was a matter of agreement fire services were called at 7.48 am and the police at 7.50.
Firefighters arrived at 8.00 am and the police at 8.05.
After “a short time” firefighters broke into the bathroom and found Mr Hunter in a bath of “scalding” water.
When a police officer tried to pull out the plug, it came away from the chain in his hands.
Firefighters had to wear protective gloves to lift Mr Hunter from the bath because the water was so hot, and despite CPR he was pronounced dead at the scene by the ambulance service at 08.31.
A post mortem said the cause of death was scalding.
The inquiry heard Mr Hunter had given up driving since hitting his head the previous year but had not been diagnosed with any cognitive condition.
The company that owned the hotel at the time has since gone into liquidation.
The hotel re-opened in summer 2021 under new ownership, with about 70% of previous staff re-employed.
It is part of the Coast and Country Hotel Collection which has 39 properties across England, Scotland and Wales.
The inquiry will continue tomorrow with evidence from the hotel manager.
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