Lude Generation

Yesterday on returning from shopping. I was locking the car while my wife opened the front door. She slipped on the outside mat(more on that later) and fell headfirst through the open door and fell on her arm she put out to save herself. She was in agony and unable to move face down half in and half out of the door. I dialed 999 and called an ambulance. The conversation after giving the details of the accident went like this.
Ambulance Control.
"Is she concious?"
Me.
"Yes"
Amb Control
"Is she breathing?"(what sort of fool question is that when I said she was concious)
Amb Control
"Clear the line and a heath care professional will call you back before we despatch an Ambulance"and the cleared the line.
I went back and comforted my wife and a coulple of local builders working next door moved her into a semi sitting position against the front door.
and tried to make her comfortable without any relief to her situation.
10minutes had passed so I rang 999 again
AMB Control after going through it again said
"We could not get a Heath care professional so we have now
despatched an Ambulance"
35 minutes after calling 999 an Ambulance arrives!

I cannot praise the crew enough they were thourough,painstaking and very comforting to both my wife and myself.
They admiistered entonox and then morphine and that was hardly touching the pain. They took her to Frenchay hospital the long way round A38 and the ring road at 15 mph to avoid any bumps which would cause my wife more pain.

Frenchay Hopital we had a 20 minute trolly wait to book her in. That I undestand is to make sure that the patients see and treat target is met as it only starts when the Ambulance crew hand her over.

She then had to wait 2hours in A&E without any pain relief to see a triarge nurse despite me getting more and more annoyed and hounding reception.

She finaly saw a Doctor who asked "where were her X rays" I told him no one had sent her for any. With that he grabbed the wheelchair and took her to Xray himself(he was obviously was very angry at this oversite to put it mildly)

Anyway things moved rapidly after that it turned out she had a dislocated shoulder and fortunately no broken bones. He put the shoulder back in place within a few minutes and my wife was almost pain free. Tody was back to the fracture clinic to see the specialist and further appointment with him and physio to follow.

Now as I said earlier the mat it is this one from Tesco(we bought two, one for the front door and one for the back)
Link
http://www.tesco.com/direct/herringb...t/208-3546.prd

I did not like them from the outset but I don't argue with my wife over these things)To stand on they bend and feel very unstable and as an addition to the above a nurse said that this was far from the first accident they had treated involving these mats.

I am considering my next move about approaching Tesco on this. Any suggestions welcome.
__________________

First and foremost, glad your wife is relatively okay now.

Personally I would go back to Tesco and find said mats and read the packaging (if any) to see if there's any installation jobby on there. Some might have the get-out thing that a lot of interior rugs have where they say you need a non-slip membrane under the rug to stop it slipping on laminate etc. flooring.

As for conscious and is she breathing, it's possible. Upper spinal injuries can cause motor paralysis which can result in respiratory arrest... all while conscious. Quite scary really.

No packaging as I recall just a swing ticket. I will take my camera into Tesco tomorrow and if they are still selling them take pictures. It is sold as a snow mat for outdoor use.

glad your both ok paul

Hi Paul,
glad she is ok. Scotch O'clock for you!

Ok.

Here's the deal.

1. Send a letter via recorded delivery to Tesco.
2. Be succinct and not too emotional but describe in full what has happened and what you would like them to do.
3. Get a report from the doctor that you saw at A&E or some evidence that you went.
4. Try and retrieve the receipt or some kind of proof of purchase.

Letter should say:

Dear Tesco,
I recent bought 'X' from you - copy of receipt enclosed. I am extremely dissatisfied with this product and have evidence that it is neither safe nor fit for purpose.
My wife used the product exactly as described which has resulted in a serious injury, <insert full description and doctors report here, together with all impact of injury and suffering etc>. I wish to give Tesco the opportunity to respond & compensate appropriately before I escalate the matter.
If we cannot resolve the matter to our mutual satisfaction I would request that you send me the details of you primary authority who will be able to mediate.
I have sent this recored delivery so that there is no ambiguity over what was sent when and to ensure that no correspondence is lost. My expectation is that I will receive verbal contact outlining your intent within 7 working days. At that point I will obtain primary authority details (or your local trading standard's contact details if your store is not covered by a primary authority agreement ) myself in addition to escalating this to relevant consumer watchdogs.

Yours sincerely.

xyz



7 - days Bazinga

My opinion is that you may be taken for a ride if you go claims directish type route but I might be wrong - if in doubt get professional advice on this one.

Nice one! I will do this. Thanks Paul

Hope everything is okay! How did you get on with Tesco?

Best wishes, Colin

Colin its a waiting game at the moment.

Need a favour.
Can anyone print a picture in the tescolink I gave in the first post and post it here as my computer will not print the picture just the wording. I really need the whole thing then I might have the barstewards!

Thanks Paul

get the picture up on the screen and press screen print, paste it into paint, save and print from there.