Injured woman awarded 10,000 GBP for school negligence

[DandyDon]

10,000 GBP award for woman injured by negligence of scuba diving school

Our client had to undergo emergency decompression treatment as a consequence of the diving school's and the diving instructor's negligence. She was a novice diver with limited experience gained when she was on holiday in Egypt in 2006.

She jumped at the chance to get more experience from a four day scuba diving course by a PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) registered firm.
The PADI Open Water Diver course she enrolled in consisted of a written theory test to understand basic principles of scuba diving, some confined water dives to learn basic scuba skills and finally open water dives to apply those lessons and newly acquired skills and explore the undersea world.
After the written theory module, the confined dive element took place in an indoor swimming pool in Aylesbury and all seemed to be going well. The third and final open water diving module was to take place at the National Dive Centre, Stoney Cove near Leicester and it was then that things started to go wrong.
The instructor had forgotten to take our client's equipment to the National Dive Centre, so on the first day she had to make do with kit that was cobbled together using 'borrowed' items taken from a 'spares' box.
Scuba divers in British waters have to be a hardy bunch. Our client was given a 5 mm Neoprene wetsuit, fine for places like the Red Sea but well below the thicker suits normally recommended for open water diving in the UK.
Nonetheless, despite a lack of thermal protection and being bitterly cold due to the thinner wetsuit, she was expected to complete three dives on the first day. Dives one and two were to a depth of six metres and dive three plummeted to 13 metres.
Sharine Burgess, the senior associate solicitor specialising in personal injury who handled this case, comments:
'This was not a good start and a complete contravention of PADI's own guidelines to avoid decompression sickness, which state that the depth limit for training dives should be 12 metres and when conducting several dives, the deepest should be done first and all subsequent dives should be shallower.'
The following day our client was handicapped by having the incorrect weights on her weight belt. This hadn't been spotted as no buoyancy test was carried out before the dive, again contrary to PADI guidelines. She struggled to descend and remain at depth, so while submerged she was given a boulder to hold while the instructor returned to the surface to get more lead weights.
Additional weights were mistakenly placed twice in her Buoyancy Control Device (BCD) which meant she was now unbalanced. She and her 'dive buddy' returned to the surface, carrying out a normal ascent and after a few minutes, the instructor signalled the group that they should dive again.
Due to the extra weights she now carried, our client sank like the proverbial stone, descending rapidly and leaving the rest of the group behind. The instructor raced to catch up with her at a depth of around five metres and immediately pulled her to the surface without stopping to allow our client to 'equalise' during the rapid ascent.
Upon reaching the surface our client told the instructor that she felt disorientated and experienced a spinning sensation. She was advised to lay horizontally on the surface of the water to recuperate which she did for around eight minutes. She then completed the final dive to a depth of six metres.
Afterwards our client told the instructor that she had severe earache. He gave her tiger balm and advised her to put a sock of salt on her ear to draw out any water. When she got home the pain in her ear was excruciating and she felt generally very unwell. She tried the 'salty sock' remedy but eventually had to get herself to hospital where she was diagnosed with a suspected perforated eardrum.
Later that same evening she developed a weird red orange tint on her skin together with a widespread rash. She called the diving school, describing her symptoms and they advised her to contact the London Dive Chamber (LDC). She told the LDC her story and they insisted she get to them without delay to undergo emergency decompression treatment.
The journey to the London Dive Chamber took our client about an hour. By the time she got there she was unable to walk in a straight line and was slurring her speech. She remained in decompression for about six hours and needed three further decompression treatments.
Sharine explains:
'After listening to her story, it seemed a pretty obvious case of negligence on the part of both the school itself and the individual instructor. There was a catalogue of almost 20 instances of negligence or failure to take adequate measures to protect our client from harm, so we agreed to take the case on a no-win-no-fee basis.'
In particular, the failure to provide her with the correct diving equipment and a wetsuit that gave adequate thermal protection impeded the circulation and contributed significantly to the compression sickness (more popularly referred to as 'the bends') she had evidently suffered.
We prepared a letter of claim and obtained full medical records and expert medical reports to support our claim for the injuries our client suffered, which included a perforated right eardrum, episodes of vertigo with impaired balance, decompression injury and understandable psychological aversion to immersing her head under water.
Although the diving school admitted that it had engaged the instructor on the course in question, it denied that any contract of employment existed and both defendants denied liability throughout. The way around this was simply to take action against two defendants - the school itself and the instructor – and compile a convincing case. Without the need to go to court, we achieved an award of £10,000 for our client.
Our client was very happy with the result and said:
'I am a busy professional and often work overseas therefore the flexibility of communicating directly with my solicitor by e-mail was important to me. I was impressed by the service I received throughout the course of my claim. The claims process was explained fully and I was always kept up to date. I am very pleased with the outcome.'

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Let's keep this in perspective. (Don, I'm also curious as to how you came across this.)

First of all, this is essentially an informational written by the law firm that had taken on this woman's case. It's a hatchet job since it's only presenting the "facts" from one side and it's all presented in a way to make their case sound black-and-white, as you would in an opening statement in court.

Interetsingly, they refer to her as a "novice diver" yet she was enrolled in a PADI OW course. My assumption is that she had done a try-dive or resort course in Egypt so this was her first "real" cert class back in the UK. But this sould also underscore for instrictors that the bar is higher when someone not certified is under your care than when you're diving with or teaching an already-certified diver.

There are a number of takeaways in this case IMHO. Whjen you read throuigh it, especially if you've been teaching for a while, this probably sounds pretty typical for an OW class. Gear was forgotten so accomodations were made, weight wasn't right so accomodations were made, student diver had bouyancy issues, and the instructor seems more intent on completing the open-water dives than realizing something's gone wrong and aborting her training until another day.

And then definitely semantics at play here from the lawyer when he uses such phrase as "plummeted to 13 meters" (43 feet) and "raced top catch up to her at a depth of roughly five meters" (16 feet). But, if you ever get sued, this is how the story will be spun. The injured diver did nothing wrong, you did everything wrong, there were opportunities to avoid doing wrong, and you didn't. Oh yeah, and you violated training standards to boot. The latter is usually the toughest to defend.

If I were advising defense attorneys on this case, I would point out that one of the toughest things to get around would be that when the student diver indicated problems, rather than getting competent medical care, the instructor advised her to basically use home-grown remedies. And while you can make the argument that the perforated eardrum happened on descent, not ascent, and therefore was something the student diver caused, by the same token, the student reported feeling disoriented and a spinning sensation upon surfacing and that should have prompted the instructor to spring into action and activate some sort of EMS. She certainly had no business being told to dive again.

So interesting story all around and perhaps a good lesson for those who teach, especially any of you who are freshly-minted instructors. Don't assume everything will be all right because many times it isn't. You may not always get sued but you do need to keep that in the back of your mind. The thing I tell my staff people is to think about what you're doing and, if it turns out something is more wrong than you think, how will you justify your actions or inactions in the witness stand before a jury of non-divers.

The other takeaway here is the settlement amount of 10,000-GBP which is about $15,000-USD. Once you start paying attorneys, experts, doing depositions, etc., the costs mount up quickly. That the insurance company could settle so relatively cheaply (in the US, four chamber treatments alone would probably set you back $20,000-25,000) meant this was a good financial outcome for them and avoids the potential of paying out a huge sum following a trial.

- Ken

 

[Storker]

in the US, four chamber treatments alone would probably set you back $20,000-25,000

Remember that this is a UK case, not a US one. Since the UK basically has a single-payer health system, the chamber ride cost wouldn't be taken by the patient.


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[Centrals]

This was my own experience:
In UK they will feed you, treat you and you walk out from the hospital NOT paying a penny. They will treat you regardless of your nationality and no one will ask for your medical insurance even if you are the King or Crown Prince of whatever. Yes, the practice do get abuse by the rich overseas patients!!
BTW, I was a student at that time.

 

[yle]

The article (of course) is a bit misleading. She wasn't "awarded" the 10,000 GBP. It was the settlement both parties agreed on to avoid going to court. Relative peanuts, really... which indicates just how weak the plaintiffs thought their case really was.

I do like the description of "plummeted to 13 meters." Gads no! Not THAT deep!

 

[Storker]

They will treat you regardless of your nationality and no one will ask for your medical insurance even if you are the King or Crown Prince of whatever. Yes, the practice do get abuse by the rich overseas patients!!
BTW, I was a student at that time.

Abused? How?

Back home, I'm covered automatically. When I travel abroad I carry my EES card. We cover life-saving and necessary treatment for anyone regardless of insurance as we regard it as a human right, but I doubt if a tourist would get e.g. scheduled surgery covered.



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[DandyDon]

(Don, I'm also curious as to how you came across this.)

Google found it under diver news, why...??

 

[Carl_F]

It would be interesting to get the real story. The perforated ear-drum makes sense from an uncontrolled (or inadequately controlled) descent.

What doesn't make sense is what sounds to be the skin bends and/or neurological DCS hit. I have only had a relatively narrow view of how OW training is conducted (SSI, my own shop in the US, my ITC & IE and initial PADI training back in '87) but even from the description provided, I am at a loss to figure out how the individual had DCS unless she was susceptible from a PFO, cold environment, dehydrated plus other pre-dispositions to DCS.

And maybe that's why the settlement was so low ... the settlement wasn't based on the DCS hit.

 

[archer1960]

It would be interesting to get the real story. The perforated ear-drum makes sense from an uncontrolled (or inadequately controlled) descent.

What doesn't make sense is what sounds to be the skin bends and/or neurological DCS hit. I have only had a relatively narrow view of how OW training is conducted (SSI, my own shop in the US, my ITC & IE and initial PADI training back in '87) but even from the description provided, I am at a loss to figure out how the individual had DCS unless she was susceptible from a PFO, cold environment, dehydrated plus other pre-dispositions to DCS.

And maybe that's why the settlement was so low ... the settlement wasn't based on the DCS hit.

"Cold" was a major item of complaint at the beginning of the article.

 

[Centrals]

Abused? How?

There are "tourists" who fly into the country have only thing in their minds ie. free medical treatment.
How?
I left the country nearly 30yrs ago but there should be still some anecdotes available on line.

We used to have the same problem in HK but the law had changed. And the main dodgers are the locals now. Pay ~12 Euro to register at the A & E Dept, admit into the ward, have the treatment and walk out when recovered. HK hospital just do not have the man/will power to chase the debt. Non HK residents pay a lot more(X10) to register but can still walk out without paying anything afterwards. Owing the HK Hospital money do not bar you from leaving the country!!
The latest trick for free treatment for HIV positive for non HK resident:
Entered HK with a bullet, committed a petty crime or simply got question/search by the police for acting suspiciously. The bullet will guarantee a few yrs behind bar and the disease will be treated!!!! A very common trick from certain country citizen in SE Asia which share a common border with commie china.