Hotel where pensioner died from scalding injuries received multiple complaints about bath taps

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The manager of a historic hotel where an elderly guest was scalded to death - trapped behind a bathroom door that could not be opened from the outside - told a court on Thursday of his “heartbreak” that the tragedy was linked to a problem that could have been rectified “decades” earlier.Wallace Hunter, 75, a retired precision engineer, died from 83 per cent burns after going for a shower on the final day of a coach trip with his wife to the Pitlochry Hydro Hotel, Perthshire.Efforts to rescue him were hampered by the fact that the bathroom door opened outwards, bolted on the inside, and had no exterior emergency release as would be the case in new buildings.When it was finally opened, Mr Hunter, from Eaglesham, Renfrewshire, was found in a bath of water so “scalding” that when a police officer tried to pull out the plug, it came away in his hands.Firefighters had to wear protective gloves to lift him out.Christopher Stanton, 56, general manager of the hotel for almost a quarter of a century, accepted he was partly to blame for what had occurred with the door.He told a fatal accident inquiry, at Alloa Sheriff Court: “I've thought a lot about this.

When you imagine not just the scenario we're talking about here, but any number of different scenarios, we'd have been in the same situation where we couldn't get into the room.“I've got to take a percentage of the responsibility for that.

If asked a direct question -- could I have foreseen this was a problem? – the answer has to be yes.“But I didn't, and nor did anybody else.“I wish I had.“I just shudder at the reality that came about that morning because of something that could have been dealt with sooner – 20 years, 30 years before.“I'm heartbroken.”Mr Stanton estimated that