Man dies after scalding shower burns him, KY suit says. Now motel owes his family $2M
A motel guest died after a scalding shower left him covered in third-degree burns, a Kentucky lawsuit said, and now the owner must pay the man’s family more than $2 million.
The guest, Alex Chronis, took the deadly shower on Nov. 19, 2021, at an Econo Lodge in Erlanger, Kentucky, according to the lawsuit filed in Kenton County. Erlanger sits near Kentucky’s border with Ohio and is a roughly 10-mile drive southwest from downtown Cincinnati.
The 76-year-old Tennessee man worked as a food vendor and was in Kentucky on business, along with two coworkers sharing his room, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
When Chronis hopped into the shower that morning and turned it on, he was “almost immediately bombarded with scalding hot water,” the lawsuit said. The sudden pain and shock caused him to fall and, unable to climb out of the shower tub, Chronis could only scream as an unbroken stream of 150-degree heat poured down on him, the suit said.
His coworkers rushed into the bathroom and pulled him out, but a great deal of damage was already done, leaving his skin badly burned and blistered, the suit read.
He lived for seven months, much of it spent in hospitals until his death on June 19, 2022. Chronis’ family filed a lawsuit that same year against Aspyn LLC and its organizer and the hotel’s owner, Sanjay Patel, documents show.
McClatchy News reached out to a lawyer listed for Patel but did not immediately receive a response.
In a judgment filed July 3 of this year, a jury determined Patel “failed to exercise ordinary care in inspecting and maintaining their hotel rooms in a reasonably safe condition,” resulting in Chronis’ injuries.
The jury awarded Chronis’ family a total of $2,037,545, for several reasons, including medical and funeral expenses, pain and suffering, and as punishment against Patel because he “acted in reckless disregard for the rights, lives and safety of other persons,” the judgment said.
It’s unclear what exactly caused the water to come out of the shower at 150 degrees, but the lawsuit mentions a “failure to provide functioning faucets/fixtures … and valves.”
Though 150 degrees Fahrenheit might not sound that hot, and is well below the 212-degree boiling point for water, it can cause serious burns very quickly, according to experts.
Just two seconds of exposure to water at 150 degrees is enough to leave most adults with a third-degree burn — and lower temperatures, 140, 130, and even 120 degrees, can result in equally severe burns depending on the length of exposure, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says.
This story was originally published July 11, 2024 at 10:52 AM with the headline "Man dies after scalding shower burns him, KY suit says. Now motel owes his family $2M."