Pitlochry Hydro Hotel worker tells of desperate attempts to save grandad who died in scalding bath

A Fatal Accident Inquiry heard of desperate efforts to break down a hotel bathroom door to rescue a grandfather trapped behind it in a bath of scalding water.

Wallace Hunter, 75, a retired precision engineer, died from third degree burns to 83 per cent of his body in the incident at the Pitlochry Hydro Hotel in Perthshire.

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 historic hotel in December 2019.

The 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 Mr and Mrs Hunters’ room and asked if they’d left a tap running but was told that “everything was fine”.

Ms Cespedes said that after finding another room for the guests below to shower in, as their’s was now unsafe, she spent about 45 minutes searching the rest of the hotel in vain for possible sources of the leak.

Then she got another call from Mrs Hunter.

Ms Cespedes told the court that Mrs Hunter then said: “Help, my husband is stuck in the bathroom and he has dementia.”

She went to the Hunters’ room and could heard Mr Hunter “moaning” from within the locked bathroom.

The hotel porter and others then tried in vain to open the door but that “nothing big enough” could be found.

One guest told the inquiry that his efforts to take down the door were “futile because of the way the door was hung”.

The emergency services were eventually called and firefighters were able to break into the bathroom where Mr Hunter was found 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 8.31am.

A post mortem said the cause of death was scalding.

The inquiry heard that 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 inquiry will continue with evidence from the hotel manager.