USA: Woman Dies In Gym’s Steam Room

Akiko Belich, a 77-year-old Denver grandma, died in a steam room of a 24 Hour Fitness club


A Denver grandma died using her local gym’s steam room — and it took staffers half a day to find her body in the sauna.

The family of Akiko Belich, a 77-year-old who died inside a 24 Hour Fitness earlier this year, is considering filing a lawsuit against the Littleton gym, KDVR reported.

Belich’s body lay in the steam room for between 12 and 17 hours after she died in March, investigators said.

A fellow gym-goer — not a staff member — found her body a day after she entered the gym, witnesses said.

The active hiker entered the fitness center around 1 p.m. on March 29. At some point, she entered the sauna, where she passed out and died, investigators said.

While the gym staffers are supposed to check the locker rooms hourly during the day and once at night, no one seemed to have noticed Belich’s body.

Gym member Sonya Wasinger found Belich’s body around 7:45 the next morning.

“I wish I could’ve gone in and found her and revived her,” Wasinger told the TV station through sobs. “Obviously, they didn’t bother to make rounds of the facility to make sure that everybody’s all right.”

An autopsy found Belich died from kidney failure caused by dehydration, officials reported.

The Jefferson County coroner ruled her death an accident.

Still, the active 77-year-old’s family said their beloved grandmother might be alive if the gym staff was more vigilant about checking their facilities.

“It would have made a difference, she might still be here,” the woman’s granddaughter Melissa Belich said.

The gym said it mandates employees check the locker rooms and sauna hourly for cleanings — but because only female employees can check on the women’s room, the regular checks are sometimes skipped.

“(24 Hour Fitness) employees do hourly ‘team cleans’ of the club, but that would not include the women’s locker room area unless a female employee was working. At the end of the night, the closing employee was supposed to walk the entire club to be sure everyone exited. That obviously was not done,” the gym said in a statement to the TV station.

When asked if any disciplinary action was taken against the gym’s staff, 24 Hour Fitness representatives would not comment, citing privacy reasons.

The Belich family’s lawyer did not immediately return any calls from the press.