Pensioner aged 99 died from burns to her feet after scalding in bath

A PENSIONER aged 99 died after suffering third degree burns when she was scalded in a hot bath.

Margery Johnston probably slipped and got her feet under the hot water tap, an inquest in Hull heard.

She suffered 12 per cent second and third degree burns to her feet, calves and thighs and died from complications in the burns unit at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield, two months later.

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The inquest heard she was 
living on her own in York Road, Beverley, following the death of her husband, a physician superintendent at the now demolished Broadgate Hospital, but continued to be active, independent and a member of a number of organisations.

Until recently she had been a member of a French-speaking group and “always tested herself mentally”.

Mrs Johnston had just returned from a visit to see her daughter in Spain when the accident happened last October.

Her cleaner, Patricia Thompson, discovered her injuries the next day. She told the hearing: “As she opened the door I looked down, I could see her feet were blistered.

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“I said ‘What have you been doing’? She said ‘I had a silly accident in the bath’.”

Mrs Johnston was taken to a minor injuries unit, then transferred to Pinderfields.

In a statement, her son Callum paid tribute to the nursing staff at the burns unit, saying she received “the highest standard of medical care and unfailingly thoughtful and sensitive care”, which “typifies the very best of the NHS”.

The inquest heard that dying as a result of burns is higher in the elderly population and the 12 per cent burns Mrs Johnston suffered would carry a mortality rate almost double that of younger patients.

Deputy coroner Geoffrey Saul recorded a verdict of accidental death.

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