Highland Council has urged residents to take action to grit their pavements after it emerged that a 91-year-old man died after slipping on an icy pavement in Inverness.
Walter Osborne underwent a hip replacement after the fall last week but died of heart failure on Tuesday while recovering at the city’s Raigmore Hospital.
Mr Osborne’s grieving widow Margaret said that to lose her husband because grit was not spread on the pavement is “unbelievable,” and called for action to prevent it happening to anyone else.
Yesterday a council spokeswoman said that, since October, the council has been encouraging communities to come forward and apply for winter resilience assistance from the local authority that would provide residents with salt in grit bins or heaps and other equipment to take action locally.
Council leader Margaret Davidson also made a commitment last week to review the winter maintenance arrangements “as soon as possible” and “make any necessary changes within the current budget.”
Mrs Osborne, 87, said the tragedy happened in Culduthel Road on Tuesday last week during the freezing conditions.
She said the grandfather-of-two felt he needed to stretch his legs after the weather had kept them cooped up inside for four days.
The couple, of Slackbuie Crescent, walked to the Scotmid in Green Drive and wore good footwear.
But they took a different route on the way back and, as they stopped to speak to someone, Mr Osborne slipped on an icy patch and fell.
Passers by rushed to Mr Osborne’s aid and an ambulance was called.
The ambulance took him to hospital and he had a hip replacement the next morning.
Mrs Osborne said he was improving day by day and was told that he might come home for Christmas, but he was instead taken into high dependency and died. Medics said that his heart gave out.
Mr Osborne had a long term heart condition which he had been managing since the early 2000s.