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?

I will respond to points properly later, got to do school run now. But I certainly had water in the car!

How do you know that they knew it was broken?

If it's wrong to use a carriage with broken air-con, then it's their responsibility to know if it's broken.

Actually this thread has reminded me that I've been on the shuttle when the aircon wasn't working in our carriage. It wasn't very pleasant but we just strolled through the train until they told us we were 10 mins from our destination. DS likes operating all the doors.

If it's wrong to use a carriage with broken air-con, then it's their responsibility to know if it's broken.

I haven't read anything suggesting that Le Shuttle consider it wrong not to use carriages if the air con is broken. From the sounds of it nobody else in the carriage had major issue with it.

Id rather put up with 40degree heat than a delay.

When I was in Egypt it was over 40degrees every day and I managed sitting by the pool or mooching round town in that heat for hours on end without fainting.

I would imagine if something more serious happened on the shuttle they'd have an ambulance standing by to meet you at the other end. Like if someone is taken ill on a plane.

I'm also thinking of normal trains in this country, the cross country services don't have a/c. You can be in one of those for ages and occassionally in summer it can get very hot. You sit there, you sweat like a pig and occassionally someone may faint.

And if you're still upset all these months on perhaps you should seek professional help. I'm sure it would add to any complaint you're making.

Unnecessary and very bloody unkind post there.

I assume that the OP didn't want to be standing for half an hour in another carriage, being fairly pregnant - perhaps she didn't know the air con was any different in the other carriages at the time.

Why are some people determined to be really unpleasant to those who are harmlessly upset about something that happened to them?

This thread serves to remind me why I am never going on that GodForsaken mode of transport

It sound like Hades

It does doesn't it AF.

I wonder if the responses would be so dismissive and harsh had the OP been disabled, or perhaps 37 weeks pregnant, and unable to get out of her car and walk to another carriage and stand there for half an hour?

If it's wrong to use a carriage with broken air-con, then it's their responsibility to know if it's broken.
But who says it is wrong? Certainly not the vast majority of train operating companies, and the entire London underground.
This seems to be why the OP isn't getting anywhere. She thinks it was wrong for her to be on a carriage with no air con, Le Shuttle and the vast majority of the thread disagree.

Why are people insisting you need the engine running to have the aircon on? In most cars it will work with just the ignition on.

Presumably other people in the carriage weren't dropping like flies?

Why are people insisting you need the engine running to have the aircon on? In most cars it will work with just the ignition on.

Oh no it doesn't! The air con uses the engine to fuel the pump and compressor which cools the air. Without power it just blows hot air through the vents.

I am never using Le Shuttle again either AnyFucker. The sole reason being because I have to use the M25 to get to/from it.

www.airconcars.com/html/how_it_works.html

It's really not AF, we did a no aircon shuttle journey 2 years ago, it was unpleasant but over in 35 minutes. I remember a member of staff popping by 3/4 times to see if we needed anymore free bottles of water, I imagine they are operating at full capacity in August and that leaving carriages empty causes delays.

There is no evidence of the 40 degree temperature except for the OP's guess.

She was not forced to sit in the car - she was able to walk about in cooler carriages. They did not force a pregnant women underground in forty degree heat. She chose to stay there. (Did they know she was pregnant?)

OP fainted. I have fainted on the tube several times - it is horrible. I fainted all the time when I was pregnant, (once in Sainsbo's ).

They dealt with the situation. (What did she want - a heart transplant?? ??) The treatment was exactly what is required to treat fainting!!!!!

Essentially, I suspect, what she wants is money. (Of course she says she does not but once she has got the company to accept that the situation was "dangerous" and that she was "at risk" then she will press for compensation).

Why persue it? if OP really wanted tp protect others there are more pressing causes.

Sorry OP you sound totally ridiculous. I imagine nobody has got back to you from Le Shuttle as there is very little to say. You could have just moved to another carriage and stood on the edge for 30 mins, or asked someone if you could sit in their car.
What you are describing is no different to how MILLIONS of people travel each summer when the temperatures rocket in London on the tube.

I think it is bonkers you are still banging on about it months later.

A PP said you are looking for an Erin Broc blah blah moment. Summed it up perfectly.
You were hot. It was unpleasant for less than half an hour. Let it go.

The temperature for the aircon on my car only goes up as far as 25 deg

Nope, you will never get me on there

Squash me up in a big piece of metal and fly me in an unlikely fashion over the channel, thanks

It's half an hour. It's by far the quickest and least painful way to get across the channel (or indeed under it) if you need a car on the other side.

Having said that, this summer I'm getting the eurostar direct to Marseille though - very exciting!

You fainted because you were pregnant. Not dying, pregnant.

Unless of course everyone in your carriage fainted?

We don't know that the temperature reached 40 degrees, the OP still hasn't said how she knew that, despite being asking several times.

We don't know if anyone else in the carriage had a problem with the heat, I'm assuming not, I'm sure she'd have mentioned it by now.

We don't know what exactly the OP expected the 'first aid trained staff' that apparently weren't there, to do, above and beyond what was already being done for her - i.e. a member of staff bringing her some water, and members of the public moving her to a cooler area and enabling her to lie down where she evidently started to recover, or what 'evidence' exactly she wanted to see - I saw no evidenc of anyone trained in first aid whatsoever during my experience

This really is a non-complaint. A pregnant lady gets too warm and faints, has some water, cools down, recovers, and carries on with her journey.

I think it's quite unhealthy that a year down the line, after being informed that the crew followed all procedures, and receiving an apology and monetary compensation, the OP is still dwelling on this and now wants copies of policies and procedures and god knows what else.

They would have had to take the entire carriage off. I suspect that probably one person has complained. That means that another 40, 50 people might have been kicked of the train. In August. God knows when they would have got home. And people would have been kicked off the next train to make room. Some might have been stranded overnight.

TBH I think they made the right call. One dissatisfied customer is better than 50 on that train, 40 on the next and 30 on the next and so on.

I don't think my comment was particularly unkind. Like other posters I suspect the OP is after a financial settlement even though she says she isn't but if not it's a very long time afterwards to be traumatised by a relatively minor event.

If she is after money evidence of professional intervention might help her case. If not, she might benefit from help in moving on.

Ilovesooty is bang on the money, so to speak.

Also, "temperatures intolerable" as per the thread heading is subjective. Everyone else appears to have tolerated it without a problem.

The Chunnel is absolutely not like the London Underground which has exits every half mile or so. It's a 50km underground working from which rapid exit is impossible over a substantial proportion of its length. This implies or should imply much more stringent safety standards.

Of course we don't know that it was really 40C (but a metal box in full sun can easily get that hot - my car thermometer routinely reads over 40C half after being parked in hot sun). Leave a dog in that temperature and you'd get crucified on mumsnet. We also don't know whether other passengers complained - we don't know that they didn't of course and I doubt the company is saying!

I think the truth is that the company have done what most companies do with initial complaints, ie attempt to fob them off. The only criticism that can be leveled at the OP is that she didn't complain vigorously or consistently enough.