£500k for 17 minutes – Post traumatic stress payout !!

How do they prove that the 17mins late caused the PTSD?

What they seem to be saying is that being in pain for 35 mins is fine, but for 52 mins is worth £500k?

Well, maybe the fairest way would be to take it to court and let a judge decide what’s a reasonable settlement. He (or she) could hear both sides of the case, weigh them up and come to an informed judgement.

Wow, you can read. Congrats.

Still doesn’t make any sense to me…..

You asked the question, and I answered it. Does that mean you can’t read?

As for the size of the payout, I don’t have a particularly strong opinion one way or the other. What I do know is that a judge heard all the evidence, which is more than can be said for you or me.

If I push an old woman down the stairs I can’t say “It’s not my fault you broke your hip. It’s your fault for having brittle bones”

the woman has (as proved in court) suffered a terrible episode and it has had life changing consequences, for which she has my sympathy. I’m just having difficulty seeing how 17mins made a difference and how the ambulance service is to blame to the equivalent of £500K.

Not categorically saying it’s wrong, just having trouble seeing the judge’s/legal system’s working out.

Actually I was hoping someone might know a bit more about the case and post something insightful.

Not categorically saying it’s wrong, just having trouble seeing the judge’s/legal system’s working out.

Unless they just figured the Insurers cough up so they may as well award her a big wedge as compensation for her current situation. If the Ambulance service isn’t insured then it’s a big dent to their budget, which will probably have a knock on effect of lowering standards in the future.

There does seem to be something of a causal discombobulation here. Unless because they were late and in a rush and they shut her leg in the ambulance door.

Unless because they were late and in a rush and they shut her leg in the ambulance door.

if she’d have been bleeding out or whatever and the delay directly caused her to lose her leg or mobility in it or something, fair enough. But this is a mental issue, not something to be disregarded – they are obviously still serious issues but as it’s such a subjective thing how can they prove the ambulance services’ 17mins made a difference. Plus as others have said on the face of it a twisted knee is fairly low priority in the grand scheme so may have been bumped…?

But this is a mental issue, not something to be disregarded – they are obviously still serious issues but as it’s such a subjective thing how can they prove the ambulance services 17mins made a difference.

Presumably, because the judge accepted expert medical opinion that it had.

Compensation culture. If the ambulance service had caused her injury fine. It didn’t. She just suffered pain for an extra 17 minutes.

While I’m not suggesting this claimant was not completely truthful many claims are exaggerated. I’m reminded of this one where evidence was led that the claimant

told her then boyfriend “ker-ching” (meaning “I am in the money”) when she “achieved” a diagnosis of PTSD from Dr Stewart in March 2003;

http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/2008CSOH143.html

Presumably, because the judge accepted expert medical opinion that it had.

Doesn’t mean we have to accept or agree with it though….

Doesn’t mean we have to accept or agree with it though….

Yep, we’re perfectly entitled to our uninformed opinions.

Further to a point made earlier, I would like to hear why the ambulance service appears to be shouldering the entire blame for this case.

Does anyone know how the injury happened, other than she did it ‘getting onto a bus’? How did she end up wedged between seats?

the “thin skull rule”. If you hurt someone, and they are unexpectedly soft through no fault of their own, you don’t get to blame them for that. Perhaps most people wouldn’t develop PTSD through waiting for an ambulance. Too bad. She did, and the service had admitted it was at fault.

It’s an interesting moral point though.
Ambulance turns up in 34mins.59seconds. tough shit about the PTSD deal with it. Ambulance turns up in 35mins.01 seconds – compensation time for the PSTD.

the woman has (as proved in court) suffered a terrible episode and it has had life changing consequences, for which she has my sympathy. I’m just having difficulty seeing how 17mins made a difference and how the ambulance service is to blame to the equivalent of £500K.
Not categorically saying it’s wrong, just having trouble seeing the judge’s/legal system’s working out.

THIS by the bucket load

Does anyone think that everything was the result of the 17 minute delay or the result of the actual incident which was exacerbated by delay?

I am finding it hard to believe everything would have been fine but for those 17 minutes tbh

Yes the judged decided but it is not like they are infallible.

Ha.some illiterate idiot has put the decimal point in the wrong place, they just refunded her 5 pound bus fare.No need for a daily mail headline for that.

or half a million for her and about 60% extra for her legal costs, then staff time lost defending themselves,extra staff to cover absent staff etc. A HUGE SUM IS GOING TO BE PAID OUT,

Just perhaps the bus driver could have driven her to hospital,instead of requsting a converted transit and 2 people to transfer her there.

Yep, we’re perfectly entitled to our uninformed opinions.

If judges are infallible why is there an appeal court?

Bit off topic but how would someone go on if they’d suffered serious injuries & had to pack in work because of someone else’s (alleged) PTSD?

She remains conscious but feels nothing and is unable to move or speak.

Bit like when you read a topic by Hora?*

‘

‘

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*the only forum member whos name I could remember no offence

Disassociative seizure is an interesting google,especially the psychogenic bit,which is the only type I can see being relevant.I’ ve nursed patients with Munchausens who could fit at will,except that an EEG shows no change in brain function during the “fit”.

I am finding it hard to believe everything would have been fine but for those 17 minutes tbh

Indeed. At a purely skim-read knee-jerk level, I find this case astonishing.

Given the number of ambo crews scrambled for genuinely life-threatening injuries and conditions – and by that I mean: massive trauma, heart attacks, stroke and the rest – at what point, on some kind of sliding scale of blame, is the Ambulance Service & their time-of-arrival “responsible” for this unfortunate woman’s condition?

Not to say that she doesn’t have my sympathy as regards her mental health, but the response-time delay means sod-all in times of her physical health. People who really need ambulances die in far shorter time than that. 🙄

It seems utterly perverse given it is impossible to prove that the PTSD was caused by those extra 17 mins and not the first 35…..

If it was up to me i’d tell her to mtfu and kick her arse out the court and all the way down the steps. Sod her mental health, get over it luv.

Tricky. I don’t think there is any dispute that her PTSD is real, and that it resulted in her losing her job etc., hence a real and quantifiable loss (feel free to dispute the expert testimony accepted by the judge who knows far more about it than we do, but I’ll feel free to ignore you). I also don’t think there is any dispute that the ambulance arrived “negligently” late, and probably no dispute that being in pain for an extended length of time contributed to the PTSD.

However there is be quite a big issue over how much it contributed – it seems quite likely that she would have developed PTSD, due to her “self inflicted” injury even if the ambulance had arrived in 34 minutes. Not to mention all the other stresses in her life which clearly contributed. Therefore it seems rather harsh to attribute all of the loss due to the PTSD to the 17 minute delay – in compensation cases there is usually contributory negligence – surely dislocating your own knee is “contributory negligence”?

I’m afraid as much sympathy as I have for the situation, it does seem to be the epitome of “claim culture” where she feels the need to find somebody to blame for something which just happened.

I’m afraid as much sympathy as I have for the situation, it does seem to be the epitome of “claim culture” where she feels the need to find somebody to blame for something which just happened.

+1

What ever happened to just accepting that ‘shit happens’….

If it was up to me i’d tell her to mtfu and kick her arse out the court and all the way down the steps. Sod her mental health, get over it luv.

The phones ringing …I think its the news about your humanitarian of the year award.

I’m all for sympathy and concern with regard to real injuries and the possible onset of trauma but such a payout as mentioned sticks two fingers and a dose of chilli paste into the wound of anyone who is genuinely injured through no fault of their own and has to survive with a paltry token amount of damages and a lollipop.

It does smack of her having found somebody who she could get money out of. I actually initially thought she had a reasonable case, as if the delay did result in those issues then it’s reasonable to expect compensation – however it does seem quite likely that her situation would have been no different if the ambulance had arrived on time. Did she only start having issues after the ambulance was late? Did the delay contribute in any way at all to the length of her recovery? There does appear to be very tenuous proof that the delay even contributed to her issues, let alone being the primary cause.

Baffling. What would have happened if she’d had a more serious injury that the ambulance guys couldn’t have treated there and then. Would there have been even more trauma to compensate for?

Like many on here, I’ve been in some pretty remote places where I could have lain injured for days, not 52 ****ing minutes. The last thing I’d do, barring some extraordinary incompetence, is blame everything on the emergency services not getting to me sooner.

I do understand the ‘thin skull’ argument and that people are affected by experiences in different ways. Maybe the judge could have awarded her gift vouchers to be spent on any therapy she chose? Why not if it’s about rehabilitation rather than money…

£500,000 stolen from patient care. Actually make that much more than £500,000 when you consider lawyers fees, court time, the requirement of people from the ambulance service to come to court and fight it.

I do hope that everyone on the bus who saw this woman injure herself decide that she has turned them doolally tap and its all her fault. Where there is blame there is a claim.

What worries me more about this story is the welfare of all of the staff involved. Specifically the ambulance crew.

Knowing what I know about investigations within this particular workforce … I’m pretty sure they will have suffered far more than 17 mins of pain !!

Too true Brack. It will have been bad for all involved.

It will be interesting to find out how she fairs now that (presumably) all financial pressures have been removed. With the right therapy she may even make an Ernest Saunders’esque recovery.

As a member of the dislocated knee club, can I ask HTF do you dislocate a knee on a bus?
I must have waited an hour to get help when I did mine.
Well I hope the cash cures her.

Makes me very angry that people are awarded these sort of sums. I’m sure it was an unpleasant experience but how is it the ambulance services fault and to be honest they wouldn’t have fixed it on the roadside either. People seem to think they are always owed something and there’s always a lawyer happy to do some fine public service.

Appears someone has expressed their opinion on her twitter account

To tonight’s trolls: I hope you never get ptsd. Take your bigotry elsewhere.

Tweets by ramalina

They always fixed mine at the roadside, and could people please try reading the info provided, she didnt wait 17 mins she waited 50. Having waited similar times for an ambulance myself whilst alternating between screaming pain and amazement at how far skin can stretch I can have a good deal of sympathy for how she felt. If I stop to think about it I can still remember the pain from the last time it happened over 20 years ago (a surgeon has since nailed it down). I snapped my cruciate ligament 3 weeks ago, that was nothing compared to a dislocated knee cap.

Last time it happened I waited about 40 mins, ambulance man arrived and looked at me and said, usually when this happens people go into shock and doesnt hurt that much, luckily my response of shut the **** up and get the gas was taken in the manner it was intended. ie he shut up and got the gas and put it back in. On the ride back to hospital they apologised for taking so long to arrive as they were busy. no worries I said I was never likely to die. Should have sued the ****!!!

ambulance man arrived and looked at me and said, usually when this happens people go into shock and doesnt hurt that much,

Really! Not my experience. I’ve seen loads of them and not once has anyone been in ‘shock’ and they’ve all been in agony!

I think most of us have – it’s a fundamental point for me, as it appears her PTSD is attributable only to the extra 17 minute wait, not the 35 minutes before (which is apparently the allowable wait), nor the fact she dislocated her knee all by herself.

Last time it happened I waited about 40 mins, ambulance man arrived and looked at me and said, usually when this happens people go into shock and doesnt hurt that much,

Nope full on Exorcist here every time I looked down to see my lower leg in a different grid reference.

I think the issue here is that it’s almost borderline reward. And some people like myself thank their lucky stars that the good people of the NHS come along and mend you, even if it takes a few minutes of your 50 plus years. So I’ll see it as an accident in life, and we/our bodies are capable of dealing with it. Some of us gave our mothers more than 17 minutes of pain when we were late into this world.

I think most of us have –

many appear not to have IMO.
She pays her taxes no doubt and has the right to expect a good service when it is needed, waiting 50 mins doesnt seem acceptable to me and has clearly led to her having problems later. I fail to see what all the frothing is about. I’m not sure I necessarily agree that higher earners should get higher earning related pay outs but she has obviously been assessed by very able professionals and these are the laws of our land.
The ambulance service should have arrived more promptly and whilst this is unlikely to have been the individuals on the grounds fault the service as a whole needs to be held to account or it will never improve.

Nope full on Exorcist here every time I looked down to see my lower leg in a different grid reference.

I think the issue here is that it’s almost borderline reward. And some people like myself thank their lucky stars that the good people of the NHS come along and mend you, even if it takes a few minutes of your 50 plus years. So I’ll see it as an accident in life, and we/our bodies are capable of dealing with it. Some of us gave our mothers more than 17 minutes of pain when we were late into this world.

I dont disgree, but you and I have obviously got through it and come out the other side relatively OK (although I still ahte anyone touching my knee cap and have on a few occasions literally thrown young ladies out of bed if any weight has come onto my knee cap 😕 ). But everyone is different and had you or I not been able to work due to the trauma what would we have done?