No Safety Glass in Rental Property Door - Personal Injury Case?

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xandra

Member
2 July 2014
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Recently, my 18 year old walked through a glass door in our rental house that he thought was open. He almost died. Here is the article from our local paper describing the incident.
The article from the paper copied.

A YOUNG 18-year-old Mansfield youth is very lucky to be alive following an accident in Kidston Parade last Thursday.

The youth fell through a large house window causing extensive cuts to his throat and body.

On hearing screams, neighbours rushed to the aid of the man, and as it happened local doctor John Hall was just driving past and was flagged down by one neighbor who recognised his car.

He rushed to the scene where he found the man bleeding extensively from three main cuts to his throat.

"There were no heroics in this, I just did what had to be done," Dr Hall said on Monday.

"The boy was in a very bad way and someone had already grabbed a towel and was applying pressure, but this was not good enough.

"When you have extensive bleeding you need pressure but with a smaller pressure pad the bigger the towel the less pressure can be applied and less can be seen to work around.

"There was a lot of blood (estimated to be about one litre) the boy had lost at that stage.

"I kept the pressure on for more than a quarter of an hour until paramedics could assess the boy's condition and take over, and then the first crew called in a second ambulance with additional paramedics to help out," Dr Hall said.

"I wasn't upset and there were no heroics, I just did what I did and it is very lucky the boy survived."

The man was taken to Mansfield District Hospital where doctors Justin Titmarsh and Will Twycross were on hand and worked on clipping three severed vessels, stabilising him to a state where he could be airlifted to a Melbourne hospital for surgery.

It is believed the young man required four units of blood before he could be transported to Melbourne. Dr Hall said the paramedics were fabulous in how they worked and what they did for the young man.

"He would have bled out within five minutes if the neighbor had not flagged me down and something quick had not been done," Dr Hall said.

"It was just fortunate that I was passing at the time and could help out."

Dr Hall said there were two strong messages in this incident. The first is if someone has a very bad cut then apply pressure with a smaller pad or packing rather than a large towel as it makes putting pressure on easier and gives paramedics a better chance of assessment. The second message is that being near a large plate glass window consider having stronger plate glass rather than ordinary glass.

Dr Hall said he was glad to hear the man had survived and had heard that a comment made when the man arrived at the Mansfield hospital that he was grateful that "an old bloke helped out it seemed like he knew what he was doing".

My son is now home recovering with 66 stitches on the outside of his body and more inside. The landlord has put safety glass in the door but there is another just the same with old glass. Do we have a personal injury case?