If you value your childs safety do not fly with Easyjet

[C09]

I would like to my family's recent Easyjet experience with our 4 year old daughter

Flight delayed by 3 hours with no information (No surprise there)

Boarded the plane.

After further delays my four year old daughter decided she needed to use the toilet. (no surprise there either)

The plane door was a swing door, not the type you push in the middle.

My daughter trapped her ring finger in the toilet door as I attempted to close it. This resulted in a crushed finger and a severe cut with copious bleeding.

The attendants response was to place ice on the cut and dip it into a glass of iced water.

I asked if I needed to get off the flight and received no guidance. The reply was, "Its up to you!"

My wife dressed the wound and we decided to continue to London.
The female attendant asked if we wanted an ambulance on arrival. We said yes.

The captain radioed onward.

She returned with a paper message reply from London asking for my daughters name, age, allergies, medication etc.

I supplied this information which I assumed was forwarded.

My daughter had calmed and the bleeding stopped. The attendant asked if we still needed an ambulance and mentioned something about possible diversion of the flight if this was still the case.

As things had calmed I said that a doctor or paramedic would suffice at the gate upon arrival as my child (A 4 year old girl) still had a bad wound.

We landed, we had to wait for all the passengers to disembark. No attempt was made to accommodate us getting off the plane first.

Before disembarking, a male pilot, possibly the captain came to speak to us, when I mentioned the medical staff that was awaiting us he remained mute (I now know why)

We disembarked, put on the bus for an epic journey to the gate where no-one was waiting.

We continued through the terminal and were fast tracked through by passport control.
My wife continued into the terminal where a first aider assisted.
We visited the Easyjet help desk where after a call to operations it was revealed that a call had gone out from the jet to London that no assistance was required. How on earth was this decision made!(This conversation was recorded)

We were then told by the desk that they were getting a paramedic to see us, it was then revealed there are no paramedics onsite and they were sending another first aider.

To summarise, my child was injured on an easyjet flight, the first aid on the flight consisted of ice cubes, we were promised medical assistance on arrival and then a decision was made on that flight to cancel this assistance without our knowledge or agreement. We found ourselves wandering through Gatwick with an injured 4 year old girl.

Where did they promise?

What did A& E say about your DDs finger?

OK - i assume most major airports in the UK have their own emergency services.

clearly there wasn't a supply of hot and cold running doctors, plastic surgeons, paramedics, priests, supernannies at the airport and I agree they either thought you were joking about a crash team waiting at the gate, it was an oversight and when the ambulance was cancelled this was taken as an 'all clear' or the Easyjet staff simply couldn't face arguing about it all the way to London with someone going all PFB on them due to guilt. I do agree that the delays are bloody annoying though.

First thing which popped into my head reading the OP was the question of travel insurance...if flying from outside UK and no insurance then it could have been costly to get off the plane.

Probably way off the mark, but hey ho!

And perhaps it was obvious to people with some basic first aid skills that the promised support was not needed and a trip to a&e once landed would suffice.

Hope your child is ok.

TBH, it sounds like a simple communication error. Person tells captain to order an ambulance, person subsequently tells captain to cancel the ambulance but the part about a doctor is missed.

It's not exactly a child safety issue is it?

Indeed, Soupdragon. It probably got translated into "ambulance not needed, they'll sort something on the ground."
Bad communication, yes, but not Easyjet playing fast and loose with a child's safety..

rubyruby I'm surprised about the blanket issue.

There have been a few times, especially when we have been flying at night, when EasyJet have got blankets out for the children to keep them warm.

If it wasn't urgent enough to have got off the plane, then I really don't see why you needed a paramedic/doctor rather than a first aider (which you did get, if I read your post correctly). A first aider is perfectly competent to administer first aid, dress the finger if that's what is appropriate, and/or refer you to the nearest A&E or minor injuries unit. If the injury required more specialist assessment or treatment than a first aider could provide it would also have required more specialist assessment or treatment than a paramedic/doctor could provide outside a hospital setting.

They should probably have made it clearer to you how you would need to access the relevant first aid, yes, but I tend to agree with previous posters that that was a communication issue and that the cabin crew would be unlikely to know themselves exactly how the LGW procedure for minor injuries worked. Room for tightening up communications procedures and destination airport knowledge? Yes (although here you are straying into the "that's what you get from budget airlines" territory). "If you value your child's safety do not fly with Easyjet"? Hardly.

Yes I think that they were right to not have a Doctor or Paramedic waiting for you. If as a parent you are not capable of getting off a plane and catching a cab to a hospital without "support" then please don't travel with young children anymore.

If she was fine to complete the flight a little bit longer in the taxi.

Stop being a drama queen.

Best call it a day on this thread.

Thank you for the replies, it's been an education. I won't show my wife this thread as she is an excellent mother and this would knock her for a six and make her question her ability.

This has been a true insight and I now understand the women who drop their kids off at school, rush off and make no effort to integrate as there doesn't seem to be an upside to joining in the mothers community and plenty of people to judge any mistake.

What a scary world she lives in.

bye

I am staggered if you felt it was bad enough to need an ambulance that you felt able to stay on the flight. it is either an ambulance worthy injury or not

if this injury had happened at home, would yu have called 999? that is a good test of whether you were being resonable about this

it sounds like crossed wires, you said the ambulance was no longer necessary, but would have liked some first aid.. whihc didn't come

that is irritating, but she had a wounded finger that had stopped bleeding.

i imagine had you requested the flight to be diverted for that, you would have got short shrift

oh fgs, you get some straight talking replies and that would be enough to derail your wife's confidence in her parenting

from waht you've posted,you were the one who trapped her finger anyway

why post and invite opinion if you only want head patting and a chorus of approval

If I were your wife I'd already be a bit cross with you tbh, you trap your child's finger in a door, cause a heck of a fuss over what turned out (we presume, as you haven't told us any different) to be a sore finger.

I'd, in all honesty, be mortified about having made such a prat of myself and keeping a bit schtum about it rather than scattergunning the web.

Do you not get out much?

TBH unless the finger had actually been severed, I would have justed patched it up with a plaster or five and gone to a doctor when I landed, for stitches or whatever.

All travelling parents need to carry a few basics for such eventualities, as children invariably find ways to damage themselves.

I'm a bit more concerned about EJ staff laying out dead passengers in the aisle, tbh. There really ought to be a better protocol for that.

Oh, dear. I am beginning to suspect that you were a royal PITA on the plane and that is why they did not tell you that they cancelled the medical team.

Why would a thread telling your wife that her husband is a complete PITA threaten her parenting ability? I suspect she knows that already.

CO9, just because you don't get the answer you want does not mean all women on here are nasty and dysfunctional. Most people on request would have offered plasters, tissues, wet wipes, etc in such incidences and helped each other out, had they been on the same plane (as indeed women do all the time with tampons, paracetemol, etc). Am I not right, ladies of MN?

Why would your wife's confidence in her parenting be dented when you were the one who closed the door on your daughter's finger?

Presume that the finger didn't need any treatment at A&E seeing as you have consistently refused to answer that question.

whispers I bet the staff still talk about ShoutyDad and the Finger and how the mother tried to pretend she wasn't with him.

A woman collapsed on my Lyingair flight one Christmas and they were marvellous. She wasn't dead, but she was passed out for a bit and they sort of dragged her by her feet behind that bit where they make the hot drinks, I was sitting at the back (like I always do) and could see her toes poking out for the first half hour then she came to and they sort of manhandled her into some spare seats and we all stared looked concerned.

ye gods, what a huffy man you are.

take this thread for what it is, absolute confirmation that the easyjet staff thought you were being a bit ridiculous demanding anything more than a first-aider.

what happened in the hospital anyway? what was the injury?

You're over reacting plain and simple.

A more upmarket airline may have let you exit the plane first (although you'd still have to wait on the bus to get taken to the terminal) and they may have had a memeber of staff meet you at the gate to escort you through passport control and to the first aider but really you needed nothing more than that. Certainly not a paramedic!

There's loads of support among women we just don't stroke each other's hair and go "there, there" over non issues.

If you'd posted saying you had an awful flight whereby you'd trapped your daughters finger and you were feeling shite about the whole experience and how it was a really stressful time (which I'm sure it was) you'd have had loads of supportive posts.

ROFL at an ambulance for a cut finger which is not bad enough for you to get off the plane or risk having your flight diverted :o

OP, try something for me. Start a thread along the lines of "I feel terrible. I (or my DH) trapped my DD's finger in an aeroplane toilet door. It was bleeding badly but then stopped. We decided to continue with the flight. Did we do the right thing? We felt that the flight crew weren't very helpful"

Suspect you'd get stacks of Good sympathy and reassurance that accidents happen, you did the right thing, and a good measure of Easy Jet are twunts thrown in too.

What you didn't get here was vindication of your apparant attempt to blame Easy Jet for your, horrid, experience.

Well CO9, as a paramedic I can tell you you would have gone down on the list of "no common sense" patients/callers. There are many of you, so don't feel lonely