Well you are, if you expect First Aid from a soft play centre!!!

[Lucyellensmum100]

If you take your child to a soft play centre, they have no legal obligation whatsoever to provide first aid if your child injures itself. This from the Environmental health and safety officer at my local council.

Thankfully though, most places would probably rush to assist you. I wont name names because that would be wrong but my child was injured in a soft play centre in Herne Bay and we were offered no assistance or first aid equipment, in terms of towels to stem blood flow etc, someone to calm me and my daughter down because i was quite frankly in an total panic. They couldnt even tell me where the local Minor injuries unit was.

I reported this to the local authorities and they have said that the only come back i have is to file a civil case, which i dont want to do, the accident wasn't their fault, but some concern would have been nice. They have upheld the complaint in terms of them sending feedback to the place but can take no action as they have acted within the law - surely this can't be right???

Apparently the responsibility lies with the parents! well yes, of course it does, but i don't carry a first aid box around with me - i had to go to the toilets to try and find something to stem the blood flow (my DD had bitten through her tongue) I amd incredulous that this is apparently OK.

I dont want people to agree with me if im wrong, which i am clearly not but i am damned sure that if anyone else on this thread was in my situation they would feel exactly the same way i do! I certainly wont be going to that particular establishment again and neither will my friends.

Oooh I'm very near Herne Bay

Pssst.... Can you whisper me the name of the place so I can avoid it?

Lucy I agree it's a bit pants that no one got you tissues and things. Sometimes in situations where there are lots of people with no clear responsibilities, everyone assumes someone else will help. Its a psychological phenomenon with a nane that i forget.

If anything like this ever happens again then if possible asking one person for a clear action eg you in the blue top, please get me a towel, can break that "deadlock".

I hope your DD gets better soon.

"maybe im the idiot for being upset that my child was treated badly by people who had taken money from me to use their premises"

noone is saying you were treated well, think everyone agrees that the customer service was poor and should have been better

but your expections of what difference a first aider would make seem a bit strange, if said bloke had attended a first aid day he'ld still be an un-caring twat who wouldn't have made you feel better or calmer! sending a staff member on the day doesn't suddenly make them experienced with loads of blood and calm in that situation etc.

• they might make a decent enough attempt at CPR if someone stops breathing, and raise a bleeding limb, or stopped people from trying to put something to bite in a fitting person's mouth.. but that's pretty much the scope of it! not much they could have done from a first aid point of view in your example!

On my last first aid course (and on every first aid course I bhave ever been on) we were told that despite all they myths no one has ever been taken to court successfully over something that happened in a first aid situation.

If you are doing CPR correctly it is very likkely you will break ribs.

There isn't an actual law but the courts are highly unlikely to rule against someone who was trying within the best of their ability to help someone. I am sure if someone swung someone around by the ankle to stop them choking then it would frown on that but broken ribs from CPR would be laughed out of court (not that it would get that far!)

vivalebeaver "A calm, sensible member of staff would have sufficed whether they were first wider or not. A first aides would have been better as they're perhaps more likely to be calm and reassuring. Know what they're talking about,masses blood loss, etc??

Dd cut her arm in centre parcs. A lovely first aides helped me with her. She was hysterical, I was fine as am medically trained. But I needed supplies. Plus I'm her mum so I was better comforting her while he sorted the cut out."

THANKYOU that i exactly what i needed, she didn't need any stitches, just someone calm, i coudlnt see what she had done because there was so much blood, i thought she had knocked her front teeth out, she was screaming "im dying im dying" - which was probably a good indication that she wasn't - i fell to peices, ended up running with her to a doctors that i knew had no Minor injuries with her bleeding everywhere. At least they sent a nurse to clean her up, advise to take to minor injuries (my DP was on his way, i dont drive). So we sat quietly and waited for five minutes for DP to come and fetch us, it was all the help i needed

Wow. I hadn't thought about this before but I would have expected places that exist so that children can be active and run about to have a first aider on hand. Our local soft play does. Sure, if someone's really injured, they need an ambulance, but a calm sensible first aider with access to clean compresses/plasters/bandages is vital, I would have thought.

You'd be surprised at the places that don't offer any assistance, though. Dh used to be a first aider and went to help a poor woman who had been bitten by a dog on the underground, only to find London Underground staff couldn't find the first aid kit. When they eventually did, it had bandages but no flipping scissors so he couldn't actually use the darn bandages properly. (Stupid owner had the dog on the escalator without carrying him, poor thing had got trapped and bit everyone around him).

Sirzy the the 8k WAS paid out!

Doctrine - the bystander effect

Lackingname - more fool the idiots who decided to pay up, then. Well, I can see their point, your own lawyers will always tell you to settle rather than risk the cost of litigation BUT if a case where someone was injured in the course of saving their life did go to court, I am sure the judge would have some stiff words with them.

Thanks!

lacking the irony was, the guy, IS their trained first aider!! But chose not to help :(

I agree that there was nothing to be done in terms of First Aid, but even if there was, they wouldnt hve had to - so if my DD had knocked herself out, broken and arm, stabbed herself in the eye, cut off her right arm - they still would have been within their rights not to help.

I would disagree that a one day first aid course doesn't immediately make someone calm and reassuring. Perhaps not for everyone but it's amazing what difference the knowledge that people are looking to you for leadership can make.

In my job I've been in situations where internally I've been shit scared, scared that someone was about to die in front of me. I've stayed calm and saved lives, knowing that I've had to stay calm. Felt like this even as a student in my first few weeks on the job. Very aware that I couldn't panic, faint when I was the one in a uniform.

in medical settings they almost always choose to pay out as a default even when they are confident that the right thing was done for the situation

point is people even THINK about claiming these things when their lives have been saved!

Lucy would still like to know where it is! Can you PM me? I take DS to a soft play place in Broadstairs but have friends in Herne Bay and often go there, and I agree, the service you received was dreadful. I'd like to know which one it was so I can avoid it!

Where is the centre on Broadstairs? There is only one in herne bay!

I know a dr who works with another dr who was sued for saving a woman's life on a plane. She had a collapsed lung mid flight and he sorted it out. She sued, I believe for exposing her breasts to the other people on the plane.

I'm a little surprised at the number of posts questioning what good a first aider could do. I'm a member of st john ambulance as are my children, A well trained first aider can asses an injury, get the right medical help, treat an injury and calm a casualty, and can potentially save lives.
Is it really that awful to expect a trained person in these circumstances? even if it just served to make everyone feel better? I can't see anything wrong with expecting that to be on hand at a council owned venue.
In this instance the injury wasn't life threatening, but what if it had been? say a child had fallen awkwardly and sustained a spinal injury? would it not be better that a trained first aider was on hand?
Perhaps instead of having a go we could be campaigning for council run venues such as this have qualified first aiders present, (speaking as a person who nearly lost a finger at a council owned ice-rink with a first aid room but no first aider).

Viva - I have been on a "save a life" course with the red cross - they did just cover CPR and how to deal with shock, apply a tornique. So even armed with all that knowledge and im an ex vet nurse who isn't bothered by the sight of blood i was a total wreck. Well i wasn't actually, i was just stuffed because i had nothing to clean her with or hold over her mouth to avoid the blood bath. So in this case the only "first aid" i needed was some clean napkins and concern.

Lacking - quite, it's astonishing how selfish, grasping and ungrateful some people can be.

Viva - what happened? Do you know what the outcome of the case was?

Oooh am off to google then...

HelterSkelter's in Broadstairs, they're ace, it's really small but lovely and they even give you a paper with your coffee. Then there's Quex in Birchington but I would imagine their staff would be as shruggy as the ones in HB if anyone injured themselves; I think they employ people based soley on their antipathy towards parents and children alike.

Thankyou Nibled, this wasn't however a council run centre. And the guy was their trained first aider (i found this out from the H&S officer from teh council) but he only has an obligation to his staff - its just mad. Oh and good for you for being a first aider - my dad used to do this, and my uncle. In fact my uncle received an obe (i am sure im not making this up) for his services to St Johns (or some such organisation).

Nibled - I am a member of SJA to for my sins and in this situation hands on first aid wouldn't really be needed, simply some TLC and calming the situation, in this setting that is as much good customer services as anything. If I was in the location as a parent I would have stepped in to try to help in that way.

That isn't saying there isn't a place for first aiders in such a setting who are willing to step in to help in whatever way needed. I would very much hope that staff or not any first aider would step in when a situation was life threatening.

Thanks tyranno - will definately look that one up, i know the one you mean in quex, its toooo mental in there for me!