What to do if your child gets seriously injured and it wasn’t their fault
As parents, we all know that our children can be a bit…accident prone. I mean, my son is sometimes very clumsy and acts a teeny bit like a giant bull in a china shop.
During holidays and weekends, taking our kids to the park or out on adventures is part of life. We expect the inevitable: falls, collisions, bumps, bruises and scrapes. We can comfort our children, give those grazed knees a magic kiss and then suddenly, everything is better again.
But what happens when they’re not actually in our care? If we’re not the people responsible for keeping an eye on them or ensuring the area around them is safe enough?
What would happen if they were at school and they suffered a serious injury?
Luke came home not too long ago with a big graze on his arm. Not exactly a huge drama and something you’d definitely expect the school to deal with. Sure enough, when I went to pick him up from the Year R door, he had that classic blue paper towel clutched tightly round his ‘wound’ and big puppy dog eyes plastered across his face, looking for sympathy. In the grand scheme of things, this injury was nothing, and as you’d expect, the school had handled the situation without any fuss and gave him the necessary medical attention.
Not too long before Christmas, he had a slightly nastier fall in the playground. He had been running and tripped over. Luke, being clumsy (I did tell you!), had managed to fall on his face and, in his words, someone ‘ran over’ him. The result was a nasty face plant with the tarmac floor. This was a much more painful injury and the teacher on playground duty scooped him up, gave him a cuddle and administered Calpol. I had already signed a form that says simple medical care, such as the administration of children’s paracetamol was fine. After he had been comforted and was back to his normal self, the school gave me a quick phone call to let me know about the situation, what they’d done to help him and recommended a visit to the dentist.
Neither of these injuries were the school’s fault. This was just my son having too much fun and not paying attention to where he was going.
But it did get me thinking.
As parents, we really do expect the odd injury. As they grow, children test their boundaries. Can I jump of this? Will I fall if I climb this? Can I run faster than a lion? It’s a normal part of childhood, and a necessary one too. But what happens if you’re children are at school and something more serious happens?
What would happen if, during during a PE lesson, your little bundle of energy fell off the climbing apparatus and broke their ankle? Or, what if, during tidy up time, they slipped on a wet floor that had not been cleaned up properly?
Bruises and grazes are one thing, but no parent wants a phone call home to say their child has been taken to hospital. And what’s worse, is that it was through no real fault of their own.
Well, it is in cases like these that you find you could be entitled to compensation. As long as the accident was caused through someone else’s negligence, in this case, the school’s, then you could have a claim. You can speak with your Personal Injury lawyer to understand the claim process; visit here to learn more. As a responsible state, the government has set rules for the injured to claim compensation for their punitive and financial damages caused due to somebody else’s negligence. In simple words, if somebody fails to uphold their duty of care and that causes injuries to your child, you can claim compensation.
Accident Advice Helpline give you a step by step breakdown of how to make a claim and how much compensation you could get. Once you’ve got your little one all sorted at the hospital, it could be something worth looking into. With Accident Advice Helpline’s compensation calculator, you could find out if you’re eligible and how much you could win, in just 30 seconds. If you do feel that making a claim would be the right thing for you to do, just gather up all your information and give them a call. Although you may not get an exact figure, you will at least get some free legal advice and a rough idea of what you could be looking at.
Of course, we hope that this is something we will never have to deal with. As a mum to Luke and also expecting baby number 2 in July, all I want to do is keep my babies safe forever. Injuries are part of life and definitely a big part of growing up. That being said, it is always worth remembering that if a serious accident should happen that is not your child’s fault, there is legal help available to you. Often we tend to over look these things, or write a strongly worded Facebook post expressing our anger, but sometimes taking action is necessary, and when it only takes 30 seconds for you to know if you have a case or not, what have you got to lose?
*This is a collaborative post*
Lukeosaurus And Me
Rachael is a 31 year old mum to 10 year old Luke and 5 year old Oscar. She lives in England and writes about family life, crafts, recipes, parenting wins(and fails), as well as travel, days out, fashion and living the frugal lifestyle.
14 Comments
Siobhan
I haven’t thought this far ahead my daughter is two and incredibly adventurous and strongwilled. This week she had a small tumble down the stairs and fell of the arm of the sofa despite being told not to climb! X #bloggerclubuk
Pati
This is a great post lovely i often wonder what would i do if my daughter got injured at school
Katy - Hot Pink Wellingtons
I think this is every parent’s worst nightmare. I have a very cautious child, but even he gets so many bumps and bruises – it’s such a normal part of childhood, but I have to admit that I find even these minor scrapes quite hard to deal with! He’ll be starting school this year, so I guess I need to toughen up!
Helen
As parents we all hope this will be an issue we will never have to experience, but it’s great to hear there is support if needed 🙂
Jen
My son once fell off a wendy house roof at school when he was in reception! We spend the afternoon at A&E but thankfully he was ok.
Elizabeth
I really hope this American-style compensation culture doesn’t become popular in the UK. Accidents happen, and it would be dreadful if kids weren’t allowed to be kids for fear of someone being sued. Scary times.
Beth @ BethinaBox.com
Do you know what? I’ve never even thought about this. I think though, it’s a sign of the times. There’s already so much health and safety in case “somebody gets hurt”. Soon, we’ll end up signing disclaimers to go into soft play. 🙁 But, as I remember a slogan. “Where there’s blame there’s a claim.”
That being said, a great post for future reference. A friend’s son got hit by a negligent driver… his bone in his foot was outside his foot. Naturally, there was a claim. But mostly for private therapy costs. She was advised that they could have gotten a lot more if they went to court.
Victoria
This is a great post. I’d never really thought about what parents should do if their child was injured in school. You always hear about being injured in the work place. Thanks for this! I think I’ll let my cousin know about your post for their kids. x
Katy Stevens
My daughter is a real ball of energy. She is ALWAYS having accidents, but so far not anything that was anyone else’s fault! x
laura dove
Gosh this is every parents worst nightmare, it actually happened to my child recently at school where she fell on wet floor and ended up in a&e with her chin glued back together.
layra dove
This happened with my daughter recently. She fell at school due to a wet floor and ended up in a&e having her chin glued back together!
layra dove
This happened with my daughter recently. She fell at school due to a wet floor and ended up in a&e having her chin glued back together!
Yeah Lifestyle
As a parent myself this is something that I think about a lot as our kids come home often with bumos, bruises and cuts from school. So it was really good reading your post and learning a thing or two on what to do.
Rhian Westbury
You’re right, it’s something we all hope we don’t have to deal with, but it’s good to be prepared x