OAP trapped in bath for 4 days saved by waitress who missed her visits to cafe
AN ELDERLY widow who became trapped in her bath for four days was saved by her love of tea and cake.
Doreen Mann, 87, feared the worst after no one answered her desperate calls for help.
But a waitress at a cafe she often visits became concerned when the pensioner failed to turn up for her regular treat, and called police.
Officers found Mrs Mann hungry and with bruised knees from trying to free herself, but otherwise unharmed. She had survived by drinking water from the cold tap and topping up the hot water or covering herself with a towel and dressing gown to keep warm.
The retired hairdresser yesterday thanked Sonia Congrave of Tomassi’s cafe in Southend, Essex. ‘I am lucky to be sitting here,’ she said. ‘It was frightening because I didn’t know how long I would be stuck there. I had gone for a bath at 9.30am and when I went to get out I couldn’t. I was lying there until the police came.
‘Thanks to Sonia the police came and found me. She is my biggest friend. If it wasn’t for her I would probably still be sitting there. I kept myself calm and thought, “I mustn’t panic”, but I never want to experience that again.’
Mrs Mann began visiting the coffee shop and ice cream parlour in 2003 after her husband moved into a care home, and goes there five days a week – every day except Mrs Congrave’s two days off. She and the waitress, who started working there three years earlier, immediately struck up a friendship.
The pensioner visited the cafe on October 5 to celebrate her birthday but failed to show up three days later for her usual Saturday visit.
She had slipped and fallen down in the bath on Friday and found herself too weak to get up again.
By Monday Mrs Congrave had become so concerned she contacted Essex Police, who sent officers to Mrs Mann’s home. They managed to get in through patio doors which had been left unlocked and immediately heard her calls of distress.
Mrs Mann, whose closest relative is a cousin 20 miles away in Chelmsford, said Mrs Congrave was ‘like a daughter to me as I haven’t got anybody else’. ‘Right from when I first met Sonia I always nicknamed her as my adopted daughter.’
The waitress is now buying her favourite customer a mobile phone so that she can call for help if she gets into trouble again.
The mother of two said: ‘She said she wasn’t sure she was going to make it and bruised her knees where she tried to get out.
‘She is a really strong woman – all she wanted afterwards was her cake and a cup of tea. She has given me a key in case anything happens in the future.’