Son comes back from school trip with fracture

[debsadoos123]

Hi, first time poster, please be kind. I picked my 14 year old DS up from school at 4pm today after he'd been away for a week skiing. When I got to him he had a makeshift bandage on his wrist and the teacher explained that someone had fallen into him yesterday morning and that my DS complained of extreme pain in his wrist. The said teacher went on to explain that they didn't seek medical attention because if it was broken then my DS wouldn't be able to fly home. They had taken him to a chemist and purchased a bandage and applied it.
By the time we had got home (10 min drive) my son was crying in pain so we went straight to A&E... Long story short, he has fractured a bone in his wrist. He is now in plaster and we have to return in 10 days for a bone scan.
Would I be unreasonable to make a complaint to school about their lack of action and failing to provide a duty of care?

Yanbu. I’m sure this is not a procedure written up after the risk assessment. Seeing as different airlines have different rules, it would make sense (where possible) for the school to use an airline, which allows passengers to fly just after having a bone set.

Sounds like they’ve handled it appallingly. If they have told you that your ds said he was in extreme pain and they actively didn’t get medical treatment in case it was broken or fractured - shows they knew there was a good chance he had a fraxture or worse.

If they were worried about him being stopped from flying did they stop to think for a nanosecond that there might be a good medical reason for this so they shouldn’t be taking your son on a plane for that reason? At least not without checking with you first.

You don’t mention pain relief - I hope they didn’t leave him without although I guess that even having both neurofen and calpol wouldn’t do much to help.

And then on their travels back - was your ds expected to ‘man up’ and carry/deal with any or all of his luggage (risking worsening any injury considerably) or did they help him?

I would play nicey nicey with school to start to get all your ducks in a row to find out the full story the timings and policies and risk assessments etc as well as what the implications of taking your ds to hospital were (missing last afternoon of skiing/final meal etc) to see other reasons they might not have wanted to go to hospital.

But once I had everything rounded up - I would be furious and come down very hard on them.

The swelling from a fractured wrist takes at least a week to come out and fractured do not normally show up on X Rays straight away because of this

THIS IS NOT TRUE. The fracture of ONE specific bone in the wrist SOMETIMES doesn’t show straight away and either needs a CT/MRI/repeat XR to show 10 days later. If you think you have broken your wrist go and see a doctor. They will assess and decide on a plan of action.

As an ex Teacher, that's bloody awful. Have they heard of Duty of Care. You don't mention pain relief either? You should have been contacted, he should have been treated. Any 'inconvenience' & flights re booking wouldn't even be on my radar if a child in my care was sick or injured until after they'd got what they needed in terms of care. Dreadful. Complain to Headteacher ASAP.

I don't understand why your DS wouldn't have been able to fly. If it happened the day before the flight in the morning then surely there was enough time to seek medical advice and he could have flown with a cast and a sling. I don't know what country he was in but ski areas are generally very efficient with fractures because they get so many.

This.
Not seeking mefdical help at the time of the injury is really disgraceful and negligent of the school.

Sometimes breaks can cause serious circulatory and nerve damage and loss of function. They were not medically qualified to assess that. They should have had him assessed medically. A teacher should then have stayed and sorted this out whilst the others returned.I would be notifying OFSTEd as this is a safeguarding issue.

So let me get this right if he had fractured his wrist he couldn't fly so they decided to not treat it and fly anyway knowing the risks
Call a lawyer and sue

You should have been allowed to make the call. They ought to have rung you, let you speak to your son, explained the situation and you should have had the final say.
I broke both wrists a few years back - one was diagnosed and set within 24 hours having been up all night in pain with it, the fracture did not show up the afternoon it happened, the other was missed entirely and put in a cast three weeks later.
That's by the by - in my case there were no ill effects of being set the day and then weeks after the event. The pain however was like labour pain/severe tooth or ear ache. I had my wrist under water to try and ease it at stupid o'clock.
I am surprised that they didn't speak to you first.

I think they should have called you to tell you what had happened, and explained the dilemma. Did your DS not call you either? In my experience once at secondary pupils have their phones with them.

It is the case though that you cannot fly with a cast - I was told it was 48 hours and after that it has to be split in order to be able to fly. Mine was put on with about a day to spare and they put on a split cast so I didn't have to return before I went home. If I'd done it closer, as an adult, I think I'd have chosen not to have it out on til o got home. I do think I'd have still gone for medical treatment first and seen what they could do without a cast.

This is why the NASUWT teachers union recommended that teachers don't take children on trips. They have to supervise far more children per adult than on a family holiday and if anything goes wrong it's potentially career ending. It's no wonder that there are far fewer trips arranged and that it's so hard to recruit teachers.

It really is true that you can't fly with a cast - for 24-48 hours flight time dependent, and even after that it has to be split.

I'd want him home.

I'd want him home too, but not if that means he had to be in pain for 2 days first. A phone call would have been the first port of call, and I'm pretty sure the hospital could have put something temporary on that he could have flown with. He'd at last have had pain relief.

Not on. We have to do loads of risk assessments to take a class to the theatre, a scenario like this while skiing should have been foreseeable and planned for. It will have been. To not even ring parents is a disgrace.

If the school were worried that he would be declared unfit to fly, pretending the unity hasn’t occurred doesn’t leave him fit to fly.
It’s appauling and negligent, both to his physical and psychological well-being. I would consult a solicitor.

Injury.

Your son should have been seen by a doctor, no way a teacher can assess the level of damage/severity and you should have been informed.
They neglected their duty of care and I would be following this up.

I flew home the next day after a broken ankle in a split cast from Cyprus with First Choice, does that mean I shouldn't have flown so soon, I cant remember as it was 2005 but I think the doctor in Cyprus also gave me a fit to fly letter too.

Rules may have changed. 2005 is 15 years ago. I was told 48 hours for any cast (even if not split) for a 3.5 hour flight - that was about 5 or 6 years ago I think.

Yanbu.Sue them and if you get any compensation money get your ds a big treat with it the poor lad.

As a teacher who has run/been on a fair few ski trips I think this is awful. I can sort of see why they maybe thought it would be best to get him home but to not ring you and discuss first and allow you to make the decision is very bad. There should always be a plan for when things like this happen. Hope your DS recovers soon

Your poor lad.

Were they in a country without doctors and hospitals, that the teacher didn't seek medical advice?! Also makes me wonder what exactly the teacher meant by (paraphrasing here) "someone went into" your son? Was it an accident, horseplay, something more serious?

As others have said, this kind of thing is what the insurance is for and this is why a school would have (or should have) more than 1 teacher as an escort. Find out what the school policies are, what kind of risk assessment, if any, was done, what insurance they had and what the local authority or school group stance is on things; have a chat with a solicitor and ask for a meeting with the Head and the teacher concerned, and, if possible and they'll allow it, a third person, and I'd also be inclined to ask for minutes of the meeting. I'm fairly sure when you signed that permission slip you won't have signed something that said "And in the event of an accident I'd like my son not to receive medical assistance, thanks"....And why on earth didn't they ring you or WhatsApp you or send you a Facebook message or something when it happened to let you know so you could decide what course of action to take? Was the teacher very young and inexperienced? Or some grizzled old veteran in the mold of Prince Philip??

Also, did anyone else hear what the teacher's excuse to you was? And out of curiosity, is it your lad's writing hand? Best of luck, and hope your boy gets it seen to by the medics as soon as possible.

You can fly. My son broke his ankle on a school trip he flew home with everyone else complete with a plaster on his leg!

Just to add this was 3 years ago initially we arranged to fly him home immediately as he was on crutches and there was quite a lot of walking all we had to do was notify the airline and they said they’d make arrangements for him at the airport etc (he was 17 and would have flown alone) but then he opted to stay for the rest holiday.

The hospital would have either put a back slab on or a split plaster to allow room for swelling. People tract things all the time skiing. The local hospital will have loads of experience with patients in this situation.

*fracture.

I was left overnight by brownies with a fractured ankle, when I went on my first pack holiday. My parents weren't informed till the next day as they thought it was only twisted. That was in the 80's!