Body in hotel water tank

When I fell over and grazed my forehead recently, the person who swabbed it couldn't find a mediwipe initially. I suggested that water would be fine (actually, the graze probably would have been fine left alone or just dabbed with my clean hanky if it bled, but never mind). He said that he couldn't use water because "water has things in it". This is water from the tap. Good grief!!!!!! Drinking and graze washing water does not have to be STERILE!

People have gone germ-fear mad!

We, like other animals who drink from streams, do have some resistance to infection.

In some parts of Scotland people's house water comes straight from a peaty stream. I've stayed in such houses. Never a problem. I think it's possible to be too concerned about risk factors.

There are times, however, when drinking water from a stream is a good idea in the short term. My father-in-law nearly collapsed from dehydration once on a hike because we had not carried enough to drink and, although the rest of us drank from a mountain stream, he didn't because he feared the infections you mention, jess. As we had arranged the walk, he and I descended the mountain back to the car while my husband and brother-in-law carried on over another peak to a spot where we would pick them up. If FiL had collapsed, it would have been a much greater emergency than an alimentary canal disorder later on. As it happens, he made it back to the car, but it was touch and go. He could hardly keep upright. I could not have shifted him if he'd fallen. Luckily there was a carton of orange juice in the car.

The rest of us were fine. Although I accept the risk you mention are there, jess, they are not enormous risks. Sometimes one has to balance risks in risky situations and choose the lesser one. Staying hydrated in mountain territory is worth taking a small risk for. And yes, it is a small risk, because most of the time, people who drink from mountain streams are fine.

Accepted, jess. So carry a water pump for mountain water drinking. Simple

Sorry... live on it, not lie on it!

Thanks, jane. I still wouldn't claim compensation. They had already been compensated in ny view. If I had been unharmed (though alarmed) by such annoccurrence, I'd just call it an adventure and lie on it at dinner parties for years

Drinking upland water is not safe. Water companies collect water from mountains and spend a lot of money and go to a lot of trouble to make it safe.
There are organisms called guardia and cryptosporidium that live in stream, river and lake water - they can lie dormant in soil and water for a long time. Can give you nasty persistent diarrhoea. My sister had a case once - miserable for months.
I remember when I was working for Welsh Water, there was a "boiling order" put on a whole county (everyone advised to boil all drinking water for a week or more) because a single sample from the treated water coming out of a water works had shown the presence of crypto. This cost the company a great deal of time and effort - they were very worried, and it was basically just one bug.
Same goes for spring water - it comes out of the ground. It is not sterile by any means.

Bags This is from Gloucestershire Trading Standards website:
"When you book your holiday with a tour operator either direct or via a travel agent, your contract for the holiday itself is with the tour operator, who is liable for all the elements of the holiday, such as travel, accommodation and any other aspect of the holiday that was sold as part of the package such as pre-booked car hire."
www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/glos/con1item.cgi?file=*adv0049-1011.txt
I would argue strongly that discovering you have been drinking and bathing in water in which a corpse has been floating for some time is extremely distressing and is certainly covered by 'all elements of the holiday'.
Apportioning blame doesn't come into it - it's an insurance issue. The individual travel companies are themselves insured by umbrella organisations.

or from

With regard to drinking water from mountain streams, basically, the higher up the safer, but another rule of thumb is to take it from springs, if there are any, of from where it has been underground for a while. What it runs through will have acted as a filter.

One can always take water purifying pills, or there are small water pump filters that are easy to carry in your back pack. Shelter Box uses slightly larger water filters of the same kind for disaster areas.

I am sure I would be equally upset - I was just pointing out that drinking from rivers and streams which do not have factory or farm pollution is not usually harmful.

But it still isn't the travel agent's or even the hotel's fault. I can fully understand their feeling disturbed by it all. So would I. But apportioning blame and wanting money for the experience is OTT in my book.

Whoever put the body there is to blame. No-one else.

Maybe, just maybe, they found it psychologically distressing to learn that they had been drinking water that had been home to a dead body. I think I would be very disturbed and probably quite upset in the circumstances regardless of any health risks. It's easy to be dismissive when you are not affected yourself.

I often drink from mountain streams - the water is continually gushing and I have never suffered any ill effects.

Reminds me of a student trip to the Lake District when we all drank thirstily from the crystal clear mountain stream and THEN saw the dead sheep lying in it. Can only say that none of us died

Yup they are trying it on. No loss. No harm.

They don't appear to have actually suffered any harm at all, other than than perhaps, building up outrage as part of compensation culture mentality.

How it had not obviously appeared not to have contaminated the drinking water though is another matter. It might have been in different tank to the drinking water of course.

It seems in a way another horsemeat in Burger situation a lot of fuss about only a low potential risk. Can you get compensation for worries about potential risk?