Woman tells of escape from hotel fire

A WOMAN fleeing a burning hotel feared for her life as she crawled through thick, black smoke, an inquiry has heard.

Pauline Booth, 52, and her husband, Scott, escaped the blaze at the five-star Cameron House Hotel in December 2017.

The inferno claimed the lives of Simon Midgley, 32, originally from Pudsey, Leeds, and his partner, Richard Dyson, 38, originally from Wetherby. Both lived in London.

A Fatal Accident Inquiry into the fire at the hotel on the banks of Loch Lomond, near Balloch, is being held at Paisley Sherriff Court.

Mrs Booth was awakened by a “piercing” fire alarm in the early hours of Monday, December 18 2017. The inquiry heard she told her husband: “I jumped up and looked out the window and saw black smoke. I said, “quick, quick, we need to get ready, it’s definitely a real fire.”

Upon exiting her room, Mrs Booth said the smoke made it difficult to see a clear escape route.

“The smoke was really dense, it was black and it was heavy,” she told the inquiry.

“We were on the floor, looking for the main staircase, crawling below the smoke.”

She told the inquiry that the smoke was around a “metre from the floor”.

Upon arriving at the main stairway, the couple realised they could not go any further as they could see the fire from the bottom of the stairway.

The couple turned around, again, crawling below the smoke and feeling for an exit.

Hotel operator Cameron House Resort (Loch Lomond) Ltd was previously fined £500,000, and night porter Christopher O’Malley was given a community payback order over the fire.

The hearing continues.