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?

I think that the shop will have learned their lseoon!

all i ma say9g uis that you are in for along fight and unless i had my brother to ring am]nd talk legalese free It woudl have been a no hoper

If it was me I'd write again, reiterate your points, explain how you were shocked by the telephone call and do not feel reassured that this will not happen to another child, refute any points you remember her making unemotionally and request a written response within 7 days (specifying the date as well)

oh and put 'Without Prejudice' at the top of the letter.. which basically means that nothing you write will prejudice any future legal action

oh and we've all got these instances with our kids to look back on ..

They made it clear to me on the phone today (see below Tuesday, 9 November, 2004 7:43:44 PM ) that they have NOT learned their lesson, and plan to make NO changes - that's the problem!

I don't have the time or energy for a long fight, but will do everything I can to make sure they don't end up with a brain-damaged baby next time

Thanks sobernow. We have cc'd the letter to the HSE. And as well as DP's description we will of course have the notes made by the A&E doctors, if we need them.

Thanks Twiglett, that's helpful

Short of butting in again here, but 2 things, Firstly how's DS doing - poor little guy? Secondly. (to reinforce the point!) you and DP are not to blame at all, don't even think but what if etc.. or loose sight of the facts of what actually happened. If theis manager has any morals at all, (or common courtisy) she should reply to you within 48 hrs max, so give it until the end of the week, (of course allowing for royal mail), but keep copys of each and every phone call correspondance the whole works just incase. If need be (i know it's more expensive) send a letter recorded delivery noting your concerns (you can obtain a signature for delivery as well from r.mail for £2.00 so they can't claim they didn't recieve it) but the main thing thou is to keep onto them, as i'm sure they will be happy to sweep every thing under the carpet, and as previously state, what if (heven forbit) the next little one is not so lucky, I think that would be a worse case (not offense you understand, but I think imho I would never forgive myself if i didn't try my utmost to do something about their obvious lack of check and saftey precautions. personally I couldn't have that on my concious if the next child was not as lucky) the main thing I think to be blunt, is to make a complete pain in the arse of your self as they will eventually do something about it, if only to keep you happy! but I wouldn't give up on the case, leave it for about a week then threaten legal action etc... Did you speak to TS yet? they are always a good bet, and they will also tell you if they have had problems with that particular company before. H&S should also pay them a visit I think as something is clearly lacking in their systems somewhere. In future it's probably best to either a) cut DS's fringe yourself, or b) if your not confident doing that do you know of any mobile hairdressers who will come to your home - that way you or DP will have complete controll over the situation and will know your self that all harnesses etc are safe and secure.

I definitely think you should at least get on the phone to local trading standards. From what you say, I think the manager sounds worried!

Cockle, just found this thread and wanted to say how sorry I was to hear about your DS. I hope he's better tonight - poor little chap.

Don't let people tell you it was your fault. I hope the owner does realise how serious this could've been and shapes up. In the meantime, I would imagine that you're telling everyone you know not to use the salon which is a very very small piece of satisfaction. That'd be one reason I'd be tempted to go down the local paper route - shame her into making her salon safe if she hasn't got the decency to do it anyway.

Hugs to little cockle xxx

"option for baby to sit on your knee"..well so what? even if you HAD been given that option and chosen not to take it that doesnt mean the chairs should be unsafe! thats the most ridiculous thing ive heard so far! i would be so angry too

so sorry to hear this cockle, how is ds now? thank God it didn't end up worse. How dare the manager act like that and the owner[anger] and trying to say he wasn't even injured!! where do these people get off acting so badly. they should have been bending over backwards to help baby and you. I am very angry for you and dh, please dont blame yourself.
To think this is a place that is specifically for children! I really do think you need to do something about it cos over people need to know so their kids are not in danger, if the owner had been appologetic and ensured that changes were made that would be one thing but the fact that she was such a cow.... I think you should report this to the H&S dept. I know that as a beauty therapist, I am resposible for clients and visitors not the parents. take for example a driver, they are responsible for ensuring children are adequately restrained/strappped in. even if the parents are also in the car it is the drivers responsibilty. so is the case here. (i do know we as parents are always responsible for our kids)
The only good thing to come from all of this is that your ds wasn't hurt too bad please dont torture yourself with what iffs, that will only make you worry all the more.
ok so i'll stop rambling. also forgot to ask how you are feeling now, such a shock.
(((hugs))) please keep us posted and keep a record of all corespondence. by the way, who called the ambulance?

see so angry didnt work!!

Given the managers evident disregard for what happened to your son, I think if you really are concerned that it may happen again to another child (which you are) you really must now go to the local press. You have given the salon a chance to redeem themselves and demonstrate 'learning' from this experience, but their response has been woefully inadequate. Other parents need to be made aware of the risk too.

Once again, THANK YOU everyone for your support and concern. DS is still not himself I'm afraid and his face still looks awful.

I will wait a few days for the owner's letter before deciding what to do next. H&S have a copy of my original letter - will probably contact TS too.

Will keep you updated. Thanks again - it's really helped getting so much advice and support here.

PS champs, no one offered to call an ambulance - we took DS in our car

Oh cockle,

I am so shocked at this woman's lack of compassion and blatant disregard for safety, makes me wonder where else she might cut corners. Think you should give her the opportunity to respond in writing as you have already requested, so, allowing for writing, post etc you ought to have heard by the weekend. Think if she has failed to respond appropriately by then you have little choice but to specifically approach HSE, Trading standards etc. with your complaint. Compensation isn't the issue here, although that may come in turn, but you just don't want to see a report of a similar accident in the local press in 6 months time.

Hope your little chap had a better night and that you are starting to get over the shock of all this. [hugs]

cockle, sorry ds isn't better yet. cant believe they didn't even offer to call ambulance, that is part of accident procedures. Do they have cctv in their salon by any chance? what a horrible experience.

No cctv as far as I know champs. Awaiting letter.

Good on you Cockle for making a stand. Its a terrible thing to happen to your poor DS. I hope the HSE do something although I know that they are always understaffed & can't always investigate everything that they should. It is reasonable to expect a harness to stop a child from falling - what else is it there for ! And most people would assume it to be attached to the chair - simply wrapping it round would not stop a child falling (as your DS found out ). I hope something is done to stop a repeat in this and any other shop. It is negligence as the shop owed your DS a duty of care. Hope you get a satisfactory result.

Thanks so much whizzz. No letter yet ...

any letter yet cockle?

Hi. We did eventually get a letter, quite cleverly phrased I thought - cc'd (as was my original letter) to Health & Safety, and very much angled at them. Still no apology, no acceptance of responsibility and no promise to change things: just vague stuff like 'we have reviewed our safety policy' and the like. They even had the nerve to mention their accident book when none was produced while we were there. No offer of any goodwill gesture or compensation, of course.

A few days later I had a call from the guy at Health and Safety who was very nice and took our concerns very seriously. He asked for more details and from what I could gather, it seems like the shop was in breach of regulations by not taking our details or reporting it to H&S (it seems like there's a rule that any accident where the person ends up going to hospital must be reported - and the shop did know we were taking DS to hospital before we left) - quite apart from giving us a false impression of safety when their equipment was so inadequate.

The H&S guy is going to pay them a visit and check out their equipment and safety policy, and he's going to get back to me within 2 weeks. Hopefully this means that what happened to ds isn't going to happen again.

It's a shame, because it's a lovely shop (sells clothes, toys etc as well as cutting hair) and I used to find it very useful - there are no shops like it locally. But until this is resolved I don't feel able to go back in. As a businessperson I'm surprised the owner didn't think it worth offering me even a gesture of goodwill to persuade me to return to the shop - but maybe she feels that would be too much like an apology/admittance of responsibility. I felt angry about this initially (I've been offered compensation for far more trivial complaints than this one in the past!), but I guess as long as the place is made safe I'll have to just put it behind me.

Well done Cockle. HSE should help to sort things out & prevent something similar happening (I'm a H&S person myself so hate things like this !)

Hope your DS is fully recovered now.

good to hear h&s taking this seriously cockle. hugz to your lovely ds. How is he? How are you? I hope you have come to the stage where you know without a doubt you are not to blame. (Takes me ages to reach that point) Hopefully you'll get a satisfactory outcome.

May I ask where abouts you are Cockle - I know of a shop like this in SW London.

Thanks whizzz and champs. DS is fine now, as am I.

aero, it's not the shop you're thinking of - hopefully yours is quite safe!

Just found this thread. Cockle - what an awful thing to happen and made so much worse by this ghastly woman's attitude. Her response displays that she has nothing but contempt for her customers. One detail I think I may have missed - is this manager woman also the owner? And is this an independent one-off sort of shop? I'm just wondering if there are other people within the organisation who you could sound off at, because the more I think about it, the more outraged I am by the way you've been treated both during and after the incident.