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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

289 replies

herbiwhore · 11/05/2015 14:03

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?

OP posts:
YorkieButtonsizeMen · 11/05/2015 17:32

Oh so it's fine to just NOT BELIEVE her when she says what her motives are?

WHY do people always do this?

'Oh, you must be after compensation. What? You don't care about compensation? Impossible! You're greedy AND a liar!'

FFS
If you can't take her posts at face value then what is the point of reading any of it.

YorkieButtonsizeMen · 11/05/2015 17:32
Andrewofgg · 11/05/2015 17:36

Nasty experience but imagine scores of people being delayed for hours and some of them heavily pregnant too. What could they do?

Good legal advice will be to leave it alone. Honestly.

Pippa12 · 11/05/2015 17:39

My air con works with just the ignition on- in fact I did this only today! However, not all cars have AC.

At twenty weeks (or 37!) I would've thought you'd be more than capable of walking to next carriage, and don't understand why you didn't do just that? If you didn't know other carriages would've been AC'd, I don't think that's the companies problem.

I don't think you need an inquest here- there doesn't sound like there is anything to be transparent about!

It must've been a frightening incident but I think your investing a lot of time and anger into a big nothing really, I'd just chalk it up to experience and forget it- you'll probably feel better about the whole thing!

VivaLeBeaver · 11/05/2015 17:43

Air con doesn't work with the engine off unless I believe you've got a hybrid car. I read somewhere that they work with the engine off.

If the engine is off the a/c light will come on and the fan will run but it won't actually blow cooled air. The actual air condition unit is cooled by the engine.

DisappointedOne · 11/05/2015 17:44

My air con works with just the ignition on- in fact I did this only today! However, not all cars have AC.

Really? What car do you have? The compressor is generally belt driven, which can't happen with just the ignition on

Was it ice cold air coming through, or just cold?

DisappointedOne · 11/05/2015 17:44

Snap VivaLeBeaver!

VivaLeBeaver · 11/05/2015 17:46

Running your a/c actually uses petrol/diesel up. You get less mpg when a/c is on. So if the engine isn't running it can't work as you're not using up fuel.

GogoGobo · 11/05/2015 17:50

Safety controls Mistigri! She was hot not in an emergency!!!
My likening of the situation with the Tube related to heat not the actual engineering of both transport systems.
Wouldn't life have been so much easier if OP had just moved to the air con carriage and stood for the 25 mins or so. Can't help people that won't help themselves.

ShatnersBassoon · 11/05/2015 17:51

Eurotunnel will continue to load passengers into carriages without AC because they can, and there will very rarely be any problem in doing so.

I think it would be a fruitless task to try to take this further. The carriage would have been ventilated with uncooled air (in spite of how it felt to you), one or more of the staff members will have been a trained first aider who would have been able to tend to you in the way they were trained to had a nurse not put you in the back of her car, the incident will have been recorded somewhere and, ultimately, there was no harm done. It will be said that it was your responsibility to alert staff (via your fellow passengers if necessary) to the problem before it got to the point that you fainted, and they could have had the chance to make you more comfortable.

I feel sorry for anyone who faints, especially in an awkward public situation, but I don't think you have a valid reason to 'take this to the top'. It was unfortunate.

FenellaFellorick · 11/05/2015 17:52

I always think 'procedures were followed' is a piss poor response.

Instead of saying procedures were followed, bugger off...

companies really should say ok, this happened, let's look at our procedures and see whether really they are the best that they could be and that situations like this are dealt with in the best way. What is the desired outcome? Does our current procedure lead to this? How could we do things differently?

We followed procedure is such a cop out. So what if you did? Is your procedure fit for purpose? That is the question. If a procedure was followed but it's a crappy one that doesn't meet needs, then change the procedure!

WeirdCatLady · 11/05/2015 18:00

Gosh it's hot in here.

Let's walk into the next carriage then.

Gosh it's nice and cool in here.

Sorted.

TenerifeSea · 11/05/2015 18:05

I don't think YABU to find it intolerable but I'm not clear what you want from them. Did you want them to delay your journey? They compensated you in the form of the voucher.

oddfodd · 11/05/2015 18:28

Fenella - but what should they have done? Neither you nor the OP are actually saying what procedures should have been followed (other than the faintly ludicrous suggestion of taking a carriage out of action, resulting in thousands of delayed journeys).

This is what I don't understand.

Original poster
herbiwhore · 11/05/2015 18:53
  1. I could not walk. I had collapsed.
  2. I know other passengera on the carriage found it difficult but I have no idea to what extent for obvious reasons.
  3. I was told temps had reached 40 by another passenger.
  4. A carriage is 4 cars long and would hardly cause a Big delay if closed.
  5. Not after the money- i think le shuttle is behaving in a way that is not accoutable or transparent, I do not believe official procedure was followed as it really could be seriously dangerous to the elderly, frail, tiny babies, animals etc. I don't like it and I don't think it's right.
OP posts:
DisappointedOne · 11/05/2015 19:00

It seems that air con wasn't fitted anywhere on the shuttle until 2010. The trains in the summer must have been awash with unconscious passengers!

Dognado · 11/05/2015 19:01

^Gosh it's hot in here.

Let's walk into the next carriage then.

Gosh it's nice and cool in here.

Sorted^

Or, gosh it's hot in here, I'm pregnant and have 50% extra blood circulating around my body, I'm dehydrated and... oh now I've fainted. But that's ok because some random kind people will carry me like a sack of potatoes to somewhere cool. How much do I owe you again Eurostar? Here's my credit card, take as much as you like.

Original poster
herbiwhore · 11/05/2015 19:02

Wow. that's incredible- could you share the link please?

OP posts:
Dognado · 11/05/2015 19:03

Actually, I don't think most people that complain are after compensation. I think a lot of people just want a heartfelt 'sorry'. And when they don't get that, sometimes they go after compensation because they feel angry. But most people? I think they just want 'sorry that happened to you, we shouldn't have done it, it was wrong. We'll try to avoid it in future.

Original poster
herbiwhore · 11/05/2015 19:03

Thanks dognado Grin

OP posts:
Original poster
herbiwhore · 11/05/2015 19:04

And link please 're no air con pre 2010

OP posts:
DisappointedOne · 11/05/2015 19:07

I'm trying to re-find it but I read it somewhere this afternoon.

IIRC the tunnel itself had air con, which was supposed to keep the trains cool too.

DisappointedOne · 11/05/2015 19:07

Can we please stop confusing eurostar and eurotunnel?

Original poster
herbiwhore · 11/05/2015 19:12

Do link when you can- I can promise it would have been an intolerable heat and I can't believe that would have been the norm- perhaps air con replaced a fan and vent system?

Its a what if- but we had no idea the air con wasn't working as obviously, above ground at that point. What if more carriages had faulty air con, this was not picked up to avoid delays and then the train got stuck in the tunnel? Personally, the thought makes me shudder

OP posts:
FenellaFellorick · 11/05/2015 19:12

Ok what could they have done.
Well, they could have a system that knows when the air con is down so that passengers can be made aware.
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.
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.
They could keep a portable aircon or fan or something in carriages
They could send a copy of procedures when a customer asks for them
etc etc
I mean, there's loads of really simple things they could have done that would have been no big deal at all.

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.

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.