Maura Templey, 86, was found lying on the floor of the bathroom in her home by her brother after her worried family noticed she hadn’t shown up to her partner’s funeral
An elderly woman tragically suffered fatal burns from scalding water that overflowed from her bathtub – after she fell in her bathroom on the day she was due to attend her partner’s funeral.
Maura Templey, 86, from Co Laois, Ireland, passed away at St James’s Hospital in Dublin on November 30, 2022 – six days after her brother found her lying on her bathroom floor. During an inquest into her death at Dublin District Coroner’s Court on Thursday, Anthony Byrne revealed that he grew worried when his sister failed to appear at her late partner’s funeral on the morning of November 24, 2022.
Mr Byrne explained that he used a spare key to enter his sister’s home after she didn’t respond to his knocks on her door following the funeral service. He and a friend discovered Ms Templey, dressed in her nightgown, lying between the bath and the toilet in her bathroom. Although she was conscious, Mr Byrne said his sister was extremely upset and in pain, and didn’t want them to touch her, the Irish Mirror reports.
He informed the coroner, Aisling Gannon, that he wasn’t aware at the time that his sister had sustained burns. He noticed water overflowing from the bathtub but it was cold “at that stage.” He also noted that the bath’s drain was blocked by a toilet roll, with several other items also present in the tub. Mr Byrne revealed that his sister was unable to share any details about her ordeal.
The inquest was informed that the victim had sustained burns covering 22% of her body, including her entire back, both shoulders and right forearm. He explained that he had called for an ambulance, but they were forced to wait four hours before one arrived at his sister’s residence. Mr Byrne told Ms Gannon that when he dialled 999 a second time, he was told that the ambulance initially assigned to attend to Ms Templey had been redirected to another emergency.
The inquest learned that the patient was first taken to Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise, before being moved to the burns’ unit at St James’s Hospital in Dublin later that night. At the time, Mr Byrne wasn’t overly worried about his sister, but a doctor informed him the next day that she had suffered severe burns and it was “very unlikely she was going to make it.”
Written statements given to the coroner by medical personnel indicate that she was administered IV fluids as she was deemed too unwell for surgery. Dr Asim Rafiq, an emergency medicine consultant at MRH in Portlaoise, said Ms Templey was disoriented upon arrival at the hospital and noted that she had been unable to rise after falling in her bathroom. Dr Rafiq observed that she likely lay on the floor for several hours before being discovered around 1pm.
At an inquest, Prof Odhran Shelley, a consultant in plastic surgery at St James’s Hospital, estimated that the victim had been lying on her bathroom floor for around four hours. The hearing was told that Ms Templey succumbed to multi-organ failure and was declared dead at 1.55pm on November 30, 2022.
The coroner said it was uncertain how effectively the deceased had communicated with medical staff regarding her circumstances. It was noted by Ms Gannon that a post-mortem examination found no signs of a cardiac event or stroke that could have caused Ms Templey’s fall. She mentioned that it remained unknown whether the deceased had taken a bath or was about to do so.
The cause of death was identified as multiple organ failure due to burns, according to the autopsy. The coroner acknowledged that congestive heart failure played a role but was not the direct cause of death. With “gaps in our knowledge” preventing a definitive conclusion, Ms Gannon returned an open verdict and extended her sympathies to Ms Templey’s family.
