Baby injured by negligence: do I complain, sue, what?

[cockle]

Feeling very angry after a horrible experience in a children's hairdressers with DS. He's just 9 months and it was his first haircut - a bit of a whim really but his hair was very wild and patchy. Wish I'd never bothered.

Hairdresser strapped him into chair and pumped chair up to quite a height (1 metre?). Haircut over, he suddenly plunged headfirst onto the floor - it turned out the harness hadn't been attached to the bl**dy chair.

His head and face are badly bruised, grazed and swollen - he looks a complete mess - but TOUCH WOOD he seems to be otherwise OK - took him to A&E and had him thoroughly checked over - just keeping an eye on him now (they let us take him home as DP is a doctor).

The fact is though, a fall like that could have killed him. The hairdresser was reasonably apologetic, but the manager was crap - EVENTUALLY appeared and asked what had happened, then wandered off again to serve other customers. Accidents will happen, but a place like that which specialises in babies in children should (a) have proper equipment, (b) use it properly, and (c) train its staff in safety procedures. Hairdresser admitted she hadn't checked the harness was attached (it wasn't part of the chair).

So now what? I am furious and want to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else. I also want to make these people face up to the seriousness of their negligence and make them realise that you cannot afford to be blase and negligent when dealing with children. What would you do?

Oh Cockle,

It's astounding that anyone has actually suggested that you are in any way to blame. As you will see the vast majority of posters are in agreement that you shouldn't reproach yourself at all. Please pay no attention to suggestions that you were in any way culpable.

Probably going to get my head bitten off but we do have to except responsibility for things we do or do not do.I think action of the manager was disgusting and the admission from the hairdresser that they just wrap the harness around is very damning.What is the point of having the thing at all it just leads people to have a false sense of security.The thing is I don't trust anyone to do stuff(health and safety properly)people always seem to cut corners and it takes something to happen for people to change their practice ,it shouldn't but it does.I suppose the thing is never to assume which means we will all be completely neurotic.Perhaps trust goes out the window and tbh I just don't think people/business can be that arsed at times.
I think people need to ve honest on the message boards too.
Hope little chap is ok

Doobydoo,

Not going to bite your head off....

Whilst you may have a point to a degree, I can't really agree with you..... I think you do have to trust other people on health and safety...otherwise, for example, would a mum of a small child with a life threatening peanut allergy ever be able to let her child go to school.....(where she will have to trust teachers and other staff to be vigilant)

Understand what you mean handlemecarefully.I suppose with a school you have to build up the trust.but you still have to trust them initially and hope they take the responsibility seriously.I do not think,though, that in some cases businesses take health and safety seriously enough so I suppose it is a case of constant vigilence which I know is difficult as we cannot always pre-empt stuff.Some things we can,some we can't.

I totally take your points re my message.

cockle I was not blaming yourself , I said how I personally would feel in a similar situation.
I sympathise to what happened to your son and thank God nothing worse happened. I hope he gets better soon. I am really sorry my post upset you, that was not my intention. I just told it as I felt it to be from my own perspective as I am paranoid about safety where my DD is concerned and I prefer to do harnesses etc myself and check how sturdy they are.
In answer to your question (what do i do) my own view was that there is not much point in carring out all these legal procedures. Again, the way I am. Wouldn't actually gain anything from it. But I agree that lots of people would feel strongly about doing something official about it, leter of complaint, elgal procedures etc. You seem to be know what to do about it in that respect. I would definetlly not go back there and would tell my friends not to go there. The manager's attitude was very bad but that's the way she must be.
I hope there are no hard feelings here.
All the best

cockle, I think you and dh are adopting a very sensible , if restrained, approach. Good idea to check what they are using now as if their "system," has failed once it could easily do so again. Pleased your little chap is on the mend.

Slightly off point there is a fine line between accepting risk and responsibility for your self and on your kids' behalf and the need to trust others and be willing to delegate it. One which I'm not sure doesn't get easily blurred in an increasingly litigious culture.

imho in this case Cockle has every right to feel let down and angry at both the negligence which led to the accident and the manager's poor handling of the situation. The shop gave her the impression that it was geared up to deal with small children safely but her ds was injured as a direct consequence of the hairdresser's lack of common sense.

At very least they should review their restraint system and ensure all those in the shop are trained to use it properly. If you fail to get an adequate apology and such reassurances then I'd take it further. Moomina's correct, they should have logged it in their Accident Book in case of a future queries as a matter of course. If this was overlooked in the heat of the situation perhaps you should arrange to return to the shop to ensure it is completed.

Hope he continues to make a quick recovery

Agree LIZS

do all you can to make 'em sorry! - and more careful in the future!

Cockle just caught up with your thread. How completely appalling. Of course the hairdresser should check the child is secure before starting - it's her work station - you trusted her not to stick the scissors in his eye.
I hope it's sorted out to your satisfaction.
I think the whole process of motherhood is one of helping children towards independence which of course means building trust with all sorts of people/agencies/services. Your confidence will have taken a blow, but you were not at fault. All the very best to you and little cockle.

hi cockle,

I've just read this thread and wanted to add something because a simmilar accident happened to my dd, who was then aged about 13 months.
We were in a cafe and I strapped her into the high chair and went to get something, turning my back for only a few seconds. In those two seconds she managed to slip through the harness - it wasn't attached to the chair properly - and was left dangling and just about strangled. Fortunately, she wasn't injured but both she, and I, were left very shaken. To make matters worse, the cafe staff told me it was my own fault and when I told them what I thought of their attitude, they threw me out of the cafe. I don't think I have ever been so angry in my life
I think that what I'm trying to say, firstly, is that it isn't your fault. The hairdresses strapped him into the chair and you, quite reasonably, assumed that the harness they were using was safe.
What I did was go to the local paper - they ran an article with a picture of dd looking very miserable (she was suffering badly from constipation at the time ) with a headline like 'Tot suffers accident in child-friendly cafe' - the cafe in question prided themselves on this . I also went to the local authority Trading Standards dept, although in retrospect I think Health and Safety would have been more appropriate. Like you say, businesses have got to learn to take their responsibilities seriously (and it is their responsibility in this case) and if bad publicity and action by HSe is what it takes, then so be it.
I think you're doing the right thing and I hope that your little boy is okay.

Thank you again everyone. I've found myself wandering around today seeing danger everywhere, the way I did the very first time I took DS outside as a newborn. He's had a very subdued day, and didn't even laugh at playgroup, which he always loves. Unfortunately another baby hit him on the head with a plastic ball and another pulled his hair, so he now looks like he's wondering what's going to hit him next, poor thing.

Will let you know what happens. All I need to know is that it won't happen to anyone else in future.

Cockle I hve been thinking about you and your baby today.

he is very young and perhaps this is your first experience of being present in a "what might have been" accident/fright situation.It is SO horrible isn't it?

Can I reassurre you that most of the mothers I know have been through these sort of things, very often when it was COMPLETELY their own fault! (which it clearly was not , in your case)

There are threads about this on mumsnet somewhere.

For my part I watched in horror as my baby ( about ten months old as I recall) rolled backwards off a table onto a hard floor RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY NOSE while I was "holding" him.

Another time my 2 yo daughter fell in two inches of paddling pool water and somehow got wedged against the side face down and began thrashing around, again RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!

The latest was recently when my five year old managed to get inside a horsebox and undo the latches and push the loading ramp down ON TOP OF MY TWO YEAR OLD.

I say all this not to worry you but to reassure you that there is nothing you did which you should blame yourself for. UNLIKE ME

And only tonight ds (aged 5) fell out the top bunk

sobernow and jasper, thank you SO much for your really sweet messages. Yes I do keep replaying it again and again - and yes this was our first truly serious (as in life-threatening) incident. Had another bad night with DS but he's teething too so hopefully it's mostly that.

Thanks again for caring. Will keep you updated.

Cockle,

some practical info about the hairdressers responsibilities:

From the HABIA website(Hair and Beauty National Training Organisation):
"Health & Safety is enforcable by law - the Health & Safety Work Act 1974. Minor offences can result in a fine of £5000, whilst more serious offences can incur a fine of £20,000 or even six months imprisonment. Extremely serious breaches can result in unlimited fines or a two year prison sentence.

It is primarily the responsibility of the business owner or manager to make sure that staff are aware of the proper procedures and implement Health & Safety policy correctly. Health & Safety applies not just to your staff, but to any members of the public on your property.

Due to staff cuts, many Environmental Health Offices are reducing their salon inspections from an average of once every two or three years to once every three or four years.

In the past, regular visits from Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) meant that you could be advised on where improvements needed to be made. However, due to the reduced number of visits, this is happening less and less. The end result is that problems could be going unnoticed, storing up trouble for the future.

As a result, there is extra emphasis on looking after your own affairs. However, do not be under any illusions - if a complaint is made against your business, you will be investigated."

Did you contact the Environmental Health dept of your local authority? They must be registered with the Local Authority, keep an accident book and have employers liability Insurance. If they employ more than 5 people they must have a Health and Safety Policy and carry out risk assessments and inspections of the workplace.

All this I know since I deal with health and safety at work, and my sister has recently opened a hairdresing salon.

Gingerbear - from experience the HSE weren't interested when my dh was left in a burning car on his own with hundreds of other petrol cars in the close proximity, everyone had spotted the fire and vacated the building but the line to the fire office was taken out 2 weeks before and not yet replaced. Also fire alarms weren't working. The fire was caused by a worker putting the petrol line right next to the exhaust manifold in manufacture.

jampot OMG!!! What happened? I am truely shocked.

The site I work on has some seriously toxic chemicals, and we have an emergency plan, spend thousands of pounds on safety, HSE visit regularly, we 'Hazard Study' every piece of equipment that is installed. As an engineer you are taught to design with safety in mind.

Jampot, that's horrific . Gingerbear, thanks very much for the info.

An update:

The shop's owner rang me today. I thought at first she was being very sympathetic ('It's such a shock when something like that happens', etc etc), but as the conversation went on it became apparent that she was making out that I was overreacting because I was in shock, and that the incident was minor and nobody's fault ('Accidents will happen' ) ....

To be continued - DS is crying

Sorry, that's cockle not Zinger (message below) - had changed nickname because I wanted this thread to be private

Continuing ....

She made lots of comments insinuating it was our fault not theirs ('Your partner was nearby, wasn't he?' etc), and claimed that they offer the option of baby sitting on parent's knee (we were NOT offered that option).

There was NO explanation of how this came to happen, NO reassurance that anything will change (in fact she maintained their safety policy was fine as it was), and NO apology until I prompted her for one. I don't know why she rang really other than to try to get me to say 'Oh that's all right, let's just forget it shall we?'. If that was what she wanted she certainly went the wrong way about it.

This call was in response to my letter, BTW - although they've had our phone no. all along, they never phoned to ask how DS was till now.

She also tried to make out DS hadn't been injured at all

I kept asking her to put her response in writing, which she kept evading - ultimately I said the conversation was going nowhere and that we needed a written response from her to convince us that this wasn't going to happen again.

Hopefully she'll have some time to think and will send a more satisfactory letter - I really don't want to have to go down the local press / legal route.

How long do you think I should give it, and what should I do if I don't get a letter?

i have been uin a imilar situation
you wont et anywhere unless you have a very good lawyer ( i ahd my brother)
ds1 was "engulfed" as dbs letter said by paving slabs at b and q when just over 1.
Depite thefactt hat they admitted at the scene they had been stacked incorrectly and ds1 was lame for 2 weeks, they paid up 1 500 £ over a year later and that was with masses of aggro from my brother
dont go to local paper and ignore them small claims court a s the most they can give you is hradly anything adnt hey will just not turn up
sorry.

oh and they always flal off bed ans things
mine hgave always survived! dont worry to much about wgat didnt happen

Yes coddy but what about the next baby who falls and isn't so lucky? Don't you think the shop should be more careful with babies and don't you think I have a responsibility to make sure the same thing doesnt happen again, with potentially more serious consequences? As a paediatric surgeon my DP is seriously worried because he sees life-changing casualties on a daily basis and feels very strongly that everything that CAN be done SHOULD be done to protect babies. Accidents WILL happen anyway (as they do in our own homes), but this one was entirely preventable.