Man died after horrific scalding

At an inquest in Hastings on Wednesday, East Sussex coroner Alan Craze recorded a verdict of accidental death after hearing how emergency crews had fought desperately to relieve the suffering of widower Stanley Charles Francis on Saturday, October 30 last year.

The alarm was raised when Mr Francis, who occupied a first floor flat in sheltered accommodation at The Lodge, Brookfield Road, failed to keep a daily lunchtime meeting with a friend, Iris, at the nearby Grosvenor Park retirement home.

She alerted kitchen assistant Anne Jacques, of De La Warr Road, who promised to check on Mr Francis after completing her trolley round.

Ms Jacques told the coroner that after being let into The Lodge she had gone to Mr Francis’s flat and had pushed open the letter-box after getting no reply.

She said: “I could feel heat coming through the slot and I heard Mr Francis shouting ‘For God’s sake help me’.”

She pressed an alarm and shortly afterwards a paramedic, Martin Jennings, and a fire crew - alerted by steam triggering a fire alarm - were on the scene.

Another Bexhill paramedic and clinical team leader, David Keeley, realised they needed to cool or release the scalding water, but the top to the cold water tap had come off and fallen into the bath and Mr Francis’s position meant the bath plug could not be released.

Mr Keeley plunged his hand into the water to retrieve the cold tap, but poor flow meant it was of little use.

He then straddled the bath in the confined space and with others helping managed to drag Mr Francis clear and pull the plug.

He said: “We cut off Mr Francis’s clothing to find both his legs badly scalded and burns to 45 per cent of his body. He was mumbling and incoherent.

“In 20 years’ service I have never come across any scald type burns as severe as those.”

Mr Francis was rushed by ambulance to the Conquest Hospital, Hastings, but later the same day transferred to the specialist burns unit at Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, where he died on November 8.

A post mortem examination by pathologist Dr Jane Weston confirmed death was due to extensive burn trauma.

The coroner said it had not been possible to establish how Mr Francis fell into the bath, although he was known to suffer short term memory loss and occasionally lost his balance.

Mr Francis’s son, Alan, said his father preferred to strip wash rather than take a bath, and since he was wearing clothes and a coat, he could only surmise he may have tumbled into the bath as he prepared to go out and pulled at the taps in a bid to get out, dislodging the cold tap and turning on the hot - with fatal consequences.