If you, or someone you love, have recently been involved in an accident or has become the victim of medical negligence, I’m sure you will have questions. This was the case for the below clients, who got in touch with our team of personal injury and medical negligence solicitors seeking advice and legal guidance.
All scenarios below are genuine questions that our Head of Medical Negligence and Personal Injury, Sue Edwards, has been asked by her clients. Obviously, for confidentiality reasons, we have changed the names and further details we felt too personal to the case.
Question 1:
Dear Sue,
My partner and I decided to send our 8-year-old son on a ‘Half-Term Football Camp’. This was organised by a local football club.
We booked online and paid £50 for 3 half day sessions. We picked our son up after the first session and he was full of beans having thoroughly enjoyed himself. The next day he was up at the crack of dawn packing his bag ready to go off again.
Unfortunately, approximately 2 hours after dropping him off on the second day, we had a call from the camp saying that Dylan had been in an accident. We both rushed to the camp to find Dylan sitting on the changing room floor with his knee split open.
He said he had slipped on the wet floor and cracked his knee on a tile. My partner is scared of blood and so had to leave me to try and console our son while he called for an ambulance. The two members of staff seemed unsure of what to do. All this time Dylan (who never cries) was sobbing in pain.
I asked the staff what had happened, but they could barely look me in the eye.
A little boy called Mathias, who had been at the camp with Dylan, was standing nearby and he chipped in saying that he had been there all week and that the water dispenser had been leaking onto the floor making the changing rooms into a swimming pool.
I clearly saw for myself that the floor was wet, and Dylan’s shorts were soaking. Shortly after this, the manager arrived. He apologised profusely and offered to take Dylan to the hospital.
We had a phone call from the manager two days later offering us for Dylan to come on the next half-term football camp with a friend free of charge.
I appreciate this is a local football club and I don’t want to make a fuss, but Dylan had eight stitches in his knee and an x-ray at the hospital confirmed a fractured knee cap. It appears to me that this was an accident waiting to happen, especially when you have a group of 8-year olds running around. It begs the question, who was supervising them and why was the water left on the floor.
I would be grateful for your advice on how we should proceed.
Thanks,
Shantelle
A: Dear Shantelle,
Thank you for getting in touch – I am sorry to hear that Dylan has been hurt doing something he clearly enjoys.
Based on what you have said, I think you have reasonable grounds to pursue a claim against the club. In the first place, if the water dispenser was leaking, there should have been warning signs in place. Secondly, there should have been a system in place to inspect the floor and ensure that it was kept dry. Thirdly, I would have expected the boys to be supervised when using the changing rooms.
So, from what you have said, the accident looks to have been foreseeable and preventable if some simple steps had been put in place. If the club denied liability, then in the first instance, we would ask for their accident and maintenance records in an attempt to establish what systems they had in place to try and avoid accidents like this. However, my experience tells me that this is a claim that the club are unlikely to defend.
Should you wish to proceed, we are well versed in pursuing claims such as Dylan’s.
I hope Dylan is back on his feet and playing football ready for summer!
Kind regards
Sue
Question 2:
Dear Sue,
I’m a keen ornithologist and spend a lot of my weekends out on the Brecon Beacons, bird watching. Unfortunately, this weekend’s visit to the mountains was brought to an abrupt end when I was bitten by a dog.
I was reaching for a sandwich from my rucksack and I did not see the young Labrador puppy come bounding up from behind me. The next thing I knew, he had bitten my right hand. His teeth were really sharp and he drew blood.
The dog’s owners were mortified and assured me it was not in his temperament to be aggressive. I have no doubt he was heading for my sandwich and got my hand instead, but I had to cut short my day out and attend hospital for a tetanus jab, and my hand was very painful for a good week afterwards. Do I have a claim?
Best wishes,
Malcolm
A: Dear Malcolm,
I am very sorry to hear of your misfortune. Claims for dog bites are far from straightforward. It needs to be established that the risk of injury is foreseeable.
Certain breeds are characterised as dangerous dogs, but a Labrador would not fall into this. On that basis, you would have to establish that this particular dog had a history of potentially aggressive behaviour.
As you say, this was a puppy, so it is highly unlikely that there would be any evidence of that. I am sorry, but my opinion is that you would not succeed in a claim against the dog owner. I hope this does not put you off your hobby. All the best.
Sue
What Can Howells Do for You?
If you feel you can relate to any of the above scenarios, why not get in contact with Sue directly by emailing pi@howellslegal.com or, alternatively, if you would like to open up about something that has affected you that hasn’t been mentioned in one of the above scenarios our fantastic team of personal injury solicitors are there to help.
