Nursery dropped 12 month old baby off changing table - can any one help?

[Yokomoyr]

[Name redacted by MNHQ] nursery in Birmingham:

During the first 2 hours of the first day of my then 12 month old son being there - they dropped him off a changing table onto a hard floor.

He had a huge lump on his head and was quite drowsy for a week afterwards, but neither A+E nor GP seemed too concerned.

Now he is struggling with communication and when we tried to get a medical examiner and solicitor to help us get some money out of the nursery to pay for Speech and Language Therapy, we have pretty much been told it cannot be linked and nothing has been done.

I would like someone to at least tell me they will look into this nursery or provide some help in the private SLT (as NHS is taking >6 months to refer through) - is that unreasonable?

Put my most precious person in the care of someone else and in an inexcusable moment when full attention was meant to be on him, there was a serious error which lead to a severe head injury in a 1 year old child.

Must admit I feel quite let down.

@Droite I do think there is a lot of internet keyboard warriorism about it. All the 'Get over it' style responses. No-one would take that position in real life - especially when it concerns such a young child. Same as the threads in which posters tell OPs to go no contact with various family members for all manner of batshit reasons.

@Droite

MNers are incredibly blasé about "accidents happen". I wonder if the reaction would be the same if the child had fractured her skull and had serious bleeding on the brain? Would you all be telling OP to ignore it because "accidents happen" - especially given that this was a totally avoidable accident?

But that didn’t happen. That’s exactly the point!

No, what is the point is the way that MNers evade this question. You can have a child fall off a table due to someone's negligence and sustain little or no injury - the fact that there was little injury does not prevent them being negligent, it just means there is nothing you could claim for. Or you could have that child fall off that table as a result of exactly the same negligence and sustain a very serious injury, and I suspect that most of the "accidents happen" brigade might well be encouraging OP to take legal action. And yet the causation is exactly the same. So why the different approach?

We see this on MN in so many different contexts. I remember a thread where a child got knocked down crossing the road on a pedestrian crossing, sustaining something like a fracture. There were quite a few responses essentially saying a fracture is trivial, accidents happen, don't be greedy. Yet when asked whether their response would be the same if it was their child who had been knocked down and they had ended up severely disabled - which could very easily have been the outcome - they all went very quiet.

You claim for damages when damage is done.

In this case there is no evidence damage was done.

If the child had a fractured skull or intracranial bleed then of course the parents could claim damages.

What on earth is your point? You seem to be waffling.

No, what is the point is the way that MNers evade this question. You can have a child fall off a table due to someone's negligence and sustain little or no injury - the fact that there was little injury does not prevent them being negligent, it just means there is nothing you could claim for. Or you could have that child fall off that table as a result of exactly the same negligence and sustain a very serious injury, and I suspect that most of the "accidents happen" brigade might well be encouraging OP to take legal action. And yet the causation is exactly the same. So why the different approach?

Because the entitlement to compensation depends on the degree of harm done.

I think it's likely that the OP (or, more precisely, the child) could get compensation for the injury caused by the fall. That is, for a bump and a few days feeling poorly. How much that would be I have no idea, but I doubt it would be very much.

To get compensation to pay for private SALT the OP would have to convince a court that it was more likely than not that the speech delay was caused by the fall. It's hard to see how that's doable when the medical evidence is that the two were unrelated.

If the child had sustained a very serious injury then there would be a claim for damages proportionate to that injury. But, on the face of it, they haven't. So that claim isn't there.

People are not telling the OP to ignore it or that she should not be distressed. Of course she should - her baby was hurt. They're saying they don't think the claim she wants to pursue has legs.

Op sorry what happened. Obviously you are both upset and shocked.
You say he had a serious head injury but the gp and a&e claim not so. So medicially he didn't have have such.
You say it caused communication problems yet the experts say otherwise.
Communication delay is common especially with boys.
Who looked after him after the incident? How did they find him?
How long since it happened?

And what age is he now.
What does your hv say?
You admit you want compensation for a bump on the head which a&e did not regard as a serious head injury .Did he have to stay in hospital?
Sometimes you just have to accept the situation.
My son was born with a serious condition which could have been fatal and countless drs and hospitals failed to pick up and it was discovered by chance when he was well into his teens. We could have sued for neglect but it never entered our heads.

as I previously said - go to OFSTED
But it has been noted that because of lockdown many lo have NOT had social & language stimulation that they normally would have so many db/dc are behind in communication - this has been mentioned
So -how old is your lo, does he talk at all? Is his language indistinct? How many words does he have?
Have you had his hearing checked or his vision? Has he had a lot of colds? Were you working from home (& this is NOT a criticism - its about a hurdle that many parents have had) & did he have a fair amount of screen time?
As others have said - first, when he fell did the nursery ring & was he sick or sleepy? I assume you took him to a & e first than gp later?
I do not expect you to answer but just to consider
When you have a child with any difficulty particularly one which must have been there since birth - many (most?) look for reasons & blame - & often blame themselves (autism is a prime example -think mmr) The point is an incident or accident can happen but it doesn't mean that it caused the issue or disability.

@Cryalot2 cross post - a lot of what you say resonates - dd has asd (adult) & getting true & accurate diagnosis was a long pathway where she went through being medicated & treated for something she did not have.

I'm not minimising how you feel but how are you assessing s&l is needed? Most places won't even refer until child is 2. If your child is over 2 then how are you linking it to a year old accident?
I understand how upsetting this must be and hopefully the nursery have implemented some extra training or other safety precautions but I'm not sure you have a claim.