Woman badly burnt in hot-pool incident

Press, 4 November 1986, Page 2

Woman badly burnt in hot-pool incident

PA Rotorua A Rotorua woman, aged 42, who the police said had apparently jumped into a boiling mud pool in Rotorua’s Kuirau Park, was in critical condition in Waikato Hospital yesterday. The woman was a patient at Rotorua Hospital and was reported missing from there at 9.45 p.m. on Sunday. The Rotorua police said the woman appeared to have jumped into the main hot area of the pool and then dragged herself to a cooler part. She suffered severe

burns to the lower parts of her legs and blistering to the remainder of her body from her chest down. The woman was found in the pool by her brother-in-law and his wife who had been searching for her in the hospital grounds and at the park. The man got down into the pool beside the woman to stop her sinking further. Three youths in the park at the time were told to run to the hospital to say that the missing patient had been found.

They could find no-one in the ward where the woman had been hospitalised and ran to the Rotorua Police Station to alert the police. The police dragged the woman out on to a blanket and then pulled out her brother-in-law who had become stuck in the mud. He did not require medical attention. The hospital’s medical superintendent, Dr Kevin Green, said the woman disappeared after being dropped off at the hospital after having a weekend home leave.