About cars being loaded into a non-air conditioned carriage on eurostar, temperatures intolerable, I collapsed?

[herbiwhore]

I've been complaining to le shuttle about this. they say nothing was done wrong and that all procedures were correctly followed - i just cannot believe this is the case.
facts of the matter are we were loaded onto a carriage last august, temperatures reached at least 40 degrees c with no air movement. at the time i was 20 weeks pregnant and after about 5 minutes of being loaded onto the train, i started to feel strange and when I got out of the car I collapsed in the heat, unable to move etc, flat on my back, could not stand up. i had to be carried by my arms and legs by other passengers to an air conditioned carriage. crew members couldnt really do anything but bring a bottle of water there seemed to be no first aid provision at all. an off duty nurse looked after me and she was amazing, laid me out in the back of her car, she was lovely, but it didnt feel right that the actual organisation had no provision for this eventuality.
i think this is really disgraceful and dangerous - customer services at le shuttle have said that 'crew followed all procedures' and that they are 'sorry i am not happy' and i have been issued with a £30 token.
its really not about the money - i have said I will not accept it. it was a horrible experience and I genuinely don't want others to go through it. there seems to be very little transparency of accountability. i've asked for a copy of their policy and procedures, health and safety guidelines, first aid policy etc and heard nothing - am i being unreasonable to think that policy and procedure could not have possibly been followed?

E) none of the above, accept it's dealt with and let it go. Spend time enjoying new baby and don't use the company again.

Rusty bear well quite

Why involve Eurostar, rusty?

F) Stop trying to claw money out of a company for a non-issue.

Ok I let it go- On here. Euro tunnel, I'll be speaking to you in the morning. Thanks all, sending good will (except you walter you pregnant woman hating weirdo) and appreciate having a lot more ammo from some amazingly informed posters

G.) Stop making lists 'cause life's too short for lists.

Oh I'm so upset now!

wonders how I'm pregnant woman hating when I have, in fact, been pregnant

Perhaps because I didn't expect the world to grind to a halt...

DisappointedOne - because I was on my phone, which auto completed Eurostar and I couldn't be arsed to go back and change it. Does it matter - you obviously knew what I meant...

I know I should do an Elsa. But I was asked a direct question so I feel it would be rude to ignore it.
For you Fenella
Well, they could have a system that knows when the air con is down so that passengers can be made aware. That's true. When the staff come walking through the carriages, they could tell people if there's no AC in their carriage
They could have a risk assessment in place that identifies the type of people who might be particularly vulnerable and a plan to help them.
They could have put a member of staff into that area to guide people. Have an identifiable first wider, for example. This is a bit unlikely. What area? Cars drive in one after the other. There's no 'area' or room for cars with people more likely to faint to be in a special section. All staff have first aid training (there are very few of them) so they don't really need to identify themselves
They could have a system that informs passengers if they are likely to experience discomfort and give them the option to take a later carriage. There's no 'later carriage'. You drive on in order. There's no getting off or changing your mind
They could keep a portable aircon or fan or something in carriages You could bring one?
They could send a copy of procedures when a customer asks for them
etc etc No. They couldn't. If the OP wishes to make a legal challenge, she can
I mean, there's loads of really simple things they could have done that would have been no big deal at all. No, there really aren't.

It never ever hurts a company to look at the way they do things and think is this the best way we could do things. Absolutely agree. But this is not an incident that is likely to lead to a Damascene conversion

Would I have done things the way the op did? Probably not, tbh but she's been kicked up down and sideways and how does that help? . But should a company say we followed procedure and not review procedures? No.
She hasn't been kicked anywhere. They've apologised and sent her a voucher. I think that's probably a reasonable response.

Hands back grip..... Your need is greater.

I'm willing to bet that if this company had removed the carriage from service as the OP claims she wanted, then she would have been screaming the loudest at being offloaded. No, that's for less important people. Someone else would have to give up their space for her.

This is one of the most unpleasant threads I've ever read. I really hope you are all nicer people in real life.

Do people really think it should be that much of a problem for staff to inform passengers that ac wasn't working in their carriage, to let them know that it was working in the next carriage and that they could move through there.

And it really isn't the same as the tube or sitting by the pool in Egypt.

If it was that hot (speculation about 40, but no objective measurement) then it would surely be obvious the air con wasn't working.
As passengers are able to go to the loo then they know they do not have to stay in a hot carriage.
OP got the correct treatment. By someone not employed by the company. She has no evidence to support her claim none of the staff were first aiders. It's just that a more qualified passenger helped her first

When it happened to us last August we were told before we left we were very vaguely warned the air con wasn't working, just checked with DH to see if i am remembering correctly. Half way through the member of staff did wander by and say 'gosh it is very hot isn't it'

We might be stupid and knew you can leave the carriage to go to the toilet but it didn't occur to us to leave the car and go to another carriage for the duration of the journey as Eurotunnel trains aren't really set up for that, they are set up for you to be with your car. Also we didn't know the air con was working in the other carriages. I don't cope well with the heat and it was an extremely unpleasant journey and I think to have been pregnant or to have had an elderly relative/small child with us would have been awful. My two were very miserable in the heat but able to deal with it as older.

It is very difficult to explain how it felt during the journey. It wasn't just the heat but an awful feeling of oppression andcwasca horrible experience . We didn't complain as just happy to be out and get on with our holiday and all well on the way back. I do understand why the OP is upset and don't feel when we were in that situation Eurotunnel staff handled it at all well.

For the record DH doesn't feel our crossing was handled well either.

Disappointed of course I get that Eurostar isn't the service under discussion (read my other posts) - the point is that Eurostar ALSO had issues regarding heat stress (they got into trouble because people, including babies, were taken ill when trains were delayed in the tunnel), but have since introduced better contingency planning, which it sounds like the shuttle could do with.

It would be interesting to know how many posters in this thread have used the services in question. I only use the shuttle in winter (to avoid potential ferry disruption due to weather) so haven't had the experience of being loaded into a carriage sitting in full sun, but I can imagine how unpleasant it could be.

Just asked DD if she remembered it and she made the point that she hates small spaces and the oppressive heat heightened her sense of claustrophobia. I have used the tube whilst pregnant and commuting, Eurotunnel with no air con was much worse.

We were actually considering using the shuttle this summer rather than a long ferry route, but this thread is putting me off somewhat.

I have the obviously infashionable view that a company which advertises comfortable airconditioned transport is actually under some obligation to provide just that

sugar plum I'm so sorry your dd feels that way- just awful. Thank you for sharing your experience here- exactly how it was for us, as you describe, except me flat on my back and ds4 very upset.

mistigri thanks again for wise words- it seems unbelievable that people who have never traveled on the euro tunnel (ahem disappointed) are happy to argue so vigourously for the rights of a large profit making transport organization.

I've got a whole load to get on with now so I can't respond to all points raised but I'll update this thread on progress made with Euro tunnel (sorry odd, I'm not even bothering to read your lengthy post) but I will say this. Remarkable how much support a parking thread gets.

I wasn't being funny with you, Odd. I was genuinely interested how you could possibly know whether I'd been on it from my reply - particularly since as I said, you were right that I haven't been!

I mean, I still (stubbornly you will no doubt say ) stand by the core of my argument - policies can and should be reviewed and change is always possible. I never ever think that there's no way to do things differently or that a procedure followed is the end of the matter, even if it's not the best way to do things.

If the suggestions I thought of off the top of my head were general and not the best way of doing things in this specific situation, I am very sure that there are changes they could make that would have the same effect, really. Identifying issues and making changes that address the issues is what it's about.

Also, would and could are different things. They could do a lot of things. Whether they would is another matter. But they could have more staff. They could have an announcement, they could change the boarding system, they could make lots of changes. They could send out policies. You say they couldn't but they could, if they chose to. It's not that they are physically unable. It's a procedural thing. And procedures can change.

I used to do this for a (very frustrating!) living. I'd go into care homes and look at their policies, procedures, everything. I'd hear we can't... it's not possible... this is how we do it... it's always been this way... this is the policy... even if things weren't working. People are resistant to change. So my first questions are always is this working? is there any reason change is not physically possible?

but the kicking - I wasn't talking about the company. I was talking about the beating the op took on here. poor bugger. She didn't half cop it.

Anyway, I'm not fighting you and never was. I just wanted to know how you knew. And now I do.

herbi, there is no need to be rude to odd. If you are talking about her last post, that was a reply to me and it was actually very courteous of her to take the time to answer my question and engage with me.

Good luck herbi I've been shocked at the vitriol on this thread.

If it helps, many years ago an organisation I worked for commissioned a new building that was designed (at great expense!) with a passive cooling system in place of air conditioning. When the building was finished we recorded internal temperatures of up to 30 degrees, so tried to claim a discount on our architect fee on the basis that we would have to retro fit air conditioning. We lost, on the basis that air temperature was just one factor (of 4 I believe) that influenced a human being's ability to regulate their body temperature and, therefore, work in comfort. It was a massive document but, in summary, because the building had such excellent ventilation and was designed to avoid direct heat from the sun, it was possible for the ambient temperature to be really quite high before comfort was compromised.

This is why a fan helps us keep cool, even though it has no effect whatsoever on the ambient air temperature.

I've been in it Fenella. I agree with your points and see no reason why some of them couldn't be easily achieved. I think in this case the lack of communication has made a bad situation significantly worse.

I have the obviously infashionable view that a company which advertises comfortable airconditioned transport is actually under some obligation to provide just that

Me too Mistigri

I absolutely agree with you Fenella that companies can and should review their policies. But aircon fails sometimes - it's unavoidable, particularly in trains that are used in a continued loop throughout the day. And the only way round it is to take an entire carriage out of service (you wouldn't be able to detach it from the train, you'd have to just leave it empty) which would cause epic delays. And most people would rather experience some discomfort rather than have their journey delayed by hours and hours.

Oh and I knew you'd never been on it because you talked about putting vulnerable people into an area and giving people the option of getting a later carriage. :)

Because the cars arrive in whichever order people ship up, they can pretty much assess how many cars they can fit on the train but not exactly. So they can't give people the option to be in a different carriage because they're not entirely sure which one your car's going to be in until they've loaded the train.