Care home patient, 84, died after hot water gush from burst pipe

Leonard Bussey, 84, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and had serious mobility problems after an earlier fall, lay helpless as the water cascaded down through a hole in the ceiling.

The alarm was only raised when a laundry assistant heard a noise “like a shower” and spotted hot water seeping under his door.

Mr Bussey was rushed to hospital but died two days later. He had suffered 22 per cent burns.

An inquest in Hull heard that staff at the Limes residential home near Driffield were meant to check on him every hour, but an hour and 20 minutes had lapsed before laundry assistant Gillian Yon raised the alarm at 12.50pm on January 21 this year.

In a statement, senior carer Annette Noonan said she went into the room and “saw a lot of steam, like a sauna”.

She added: “I could also hear what sounded like a tap running. Mr Bussey was laid on his back, and I could hear him emit a low moan.

“I told my members of staff to get cold water and cold towels.”

A post-mortem examination revealed that water had begun to pour onto Mr Bussey’s right hip before seeping around his plastic mattress, causing further serious scalds to his chest, right arm and right thigh.

Giving evidence, his daughter Elizabeth Worsman said her father started to develop dementia when he was 77 and he went into the care home last September as her mother was finding it difficult to cope.

She said his lack of mobility following the fall, combined with his severe dementia, would have left him unable to work out why or how to operate the red emergency cord in his room.

The inquest continues.