On a cold February morning in 1938, Warren Cole stepped into a bathtub filled with scalding hot water. A patient at the Rhode Island State Hospital for Mental Diseases, Cole,  29, succumbed to second-degree burns on his back before shock and toxemia set in. He was discovered deceased in the tub, submerged in about three feet of water, by hospital attendant Philip Reneaud who heard the water running in the bathroom and went to investigate.

Cole was a native of Canada who had been employed as a checker in a Maine lumberyard before moving to Providence to live with his sister Helen on Public Street. He had been admitted to the hospital on Jan. 25 for general paresis. The medical examiner ruled his death a suicide and an investigation ensued. The hospital superintendent said in a statement that patients did not have access to the keys to turn on water faucets. Due to the fact that rules regarding patient safety must not have been followed as Cole had managed to obtain a key, four hospital attendants were suspended; Malcolm Campbell was a 35-year-old resident of Cranston who had been employed at the hospital for almost two years; Philip Renaud was a 23-year-old resident of Woonsocket who had been employed there for seven months; Walter Spuerkel was a 27-year-old resident of Cranston who had been working at the hospital for five months; Arthur Pacheco of Bristol had been an employee for one month.

It was argued that overcrowding made it difficult to ensure patient safety at the institution. Cole’s personal medical chart stated that he was to be under constant supervision, however he had been alone in the bathroom for 15 minutes while the attendants served breakfast. During the hearings regarding patient safety, it was suggested that thermostats at the hospital be adjusted to avoid fatal burns. One year later, Estella Louisa (Hull) Jones – another patient at the State Hospital for Mental Diseases – succumbed to fatal burns in a bathtub.

Estella’s father had died when she was three. When she was five, her mother married Edward Cone of South Kingstown. Six months later, her stepfather died. At the age of 27, Estella herself became a wife when she married 70-year-old farmer George Jones.

Estella and George lived on Willard Avenue in Wakefield before she was placed at the State Hospital. On Feb. 4, 1939, she was taking a bath at the facility when the tub suddenly turned into a boiling cauldron. Estella suffered third-degree burns on her right hip and left hand. She died from the effects of ulceration and toxemia. A stone slab in the State Farm cemetery stamped with the number 1571 marks the location of Estella’s body. In investigation into the death resulted in a determination being made that the thermostat on the tub had been “faulty.”   

Kelly Sullivan is a Rhode Island columnist, lecturer and author.