Joe Harker
An inquiry into the death of a pensioner in 2019 who was scalded to death in his hotel bath found that his passing could have been avoided.
75-year-old Wallace Hunter died in December 2019 at Pitlochry Hydro after he got stuck in a bath where the hot tap stayed on and continued to pour scalding hot water.
The inquiry found that the hotel had received numerous complaints about hot water in the months before Mr Hunter's death, with various guests saying they couldn't get the cold water to work in their rooms.
In late November 2019, multiple guests complained about how hot the water was in room 211, with a woman named Victoria Nicholson saying the water in the room's shower was 'scalding' and a man named Peter Barron saying the bathtub water was 'quite hot'.
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Wallace Hunter and his wife checked into room 211, one of 10 rooms the inquiry said needed updating, on 29 November 2019.
On 1 December at around 7:30am, Hunter told his wife he was going to have a shower but appeared to have decided to have a bath instead, locking the bathroom door behind him.
The occupants of the room below soon afterwards noticed that hot water was running down their walls and hotel staff called the Hunters to ask if anything was wrong, they initially said no, but then Wallace said he couldn't get out of the bath or turn the tap off.
Mr Hunter could at first be heard through the door, but 'then became silent'.
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When the emergency services were called, they broke down the door and found Wallace Hunter unresponsive in the bath, which was 'overflowing with scalding water' and required firefighters and police officers to wear gloves.
CPR was administered but at around 8:30am, Hunter was pronounced dead at the scene. He had suffered third degree burns to 83 percent of his body.
At the inquiry, Sheriff John MacRitchie said that the pensioner's death might have been avoided if the bath tap in the hotel room, which had been 30 years old, was better maintained and guest complaints about the heat of the water had been looked into further.
"These defects on the balance of probabilities contributed to the death and the accident resulting in the death of Mr Hunter," he said.
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"It is reasonable to infer that the lack of, not just annual, but any maintenance of the tap and its components did in fact contribute to the death."
Wallace Hunter's son Keir and daughter Kimberly said in a statement that the inquiry verdict was 'the most difficult thing we have ever had to read'.
They said: "It describes in full detail our dad's excruciating and drawn-out final moments but also shines a light on the fact that his death could and would have been avoided had the hotel used qualified maintenance staff and had the most basic of maintenance regimes in place for its hot water supply.
"The fault which caused our father's death had been complained about by many previous guests and was well known to the the hotel management.
"They ignored these warnings."
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At the time of the 75-year-old's death the hotel was being run by Specialist Leisure Group, but they collapsed in 2020 and the Pitlochry Hydro is now under new management.