Elderly patient died days after scalding accident

AN ELDERLY man with Alzheimer’s disease suffered severe burns when he flooded his room in a hospital’s psychiatric unit with scalding water from a hot tap.

The first and second degree burns covering almost 12% of John Ring’s body led to a fatal heart attack several days later, Cork City Coroner’s Court was told. However, Mr Ring’s family wasn’t told about the burns incident for almost two days, and it was a further two days before he was transferred to the hospital’s plastic surgery unit.

The details of the tragic circumstances surrounding the death were outlined to Cork’s city coroner, Dr Myra Cullinane, yesterday.