Tuesday, January 8, 2013

No good deed goes unpunished

No good deed goes unpunished.
Clare Boothe Luce

 It's a popular trope and it seems particularly apt in the case of this good Samaritan...
BBC.
Firefighters cut the roof off a woman's undamaged car to rescue two people she gave shelter to following an accident.
Janice Dunlop narrowly avoided the accident herself when a lorry overturned on the A27 near Arundel, colliding with two cars.
She allowed the pair to wait in her car but firefighters cut the roof off after the two complained of neck pains and paramedics needed to move them.
Mrs Dunlop said she is still unsure whether insurers will replace the car.
Ouch, plus the possible insurance scam ruling I do have sympathy for the woman, though first aiders would probably have told her it wasn't a good idea what with potential whiplash or other injuries. A car is probably not the best enclosed space in which to find yourself trapped.
That said, kudos to Janice Dunlop for at least caring enough to help the injured in the aftermath of the accident though her later quote of sheer carnage is rather undermined by the Ambulance boss statement that  no one was seriously injured in the collision, so carnage it wasn't, though certainly messy.
Still, you can't help but wonder if it was the fear of getting sued rather than the fear of exacerbating an injury that caused the decision to cut off the roof. No doubt injury lawyers would have salivated at getting their hands on a case where their prospective clients had been dragged out of a car by medical staff at the scene. Certainly worth a couple of grand I'd expect.
I do hope Janice Dunlop's insurers do come through for her, giving aid to the injured is not as common as it was in society a few years ago when political correctness and no win no fee lawyering came about.
Still, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

5 annotations:

Jim said...

Its an indication of how cynical I have become that the first thing that came to my mind was that this was a sham on the part of the accident victims in order to claim whiplash injury compensation. And of course once they had said to the ambulance staff that they 'had neck pain' the rest just became inevitable.

The car owner should have refused to allow it. Then if the fire brigade/paramedics did it against her wishes they would be liable. By giving her permission she's screwed herself.

Bucko said...

I would have dragged the buggers out of the car myself before allowing that

StourbridgeRantBoy said...

They managed to get into the car OK? Obviously they thouht of the 'ticket out of the gutter' - If they feel they have a case for 'whiplash' then they will still have to got to the doctors to have a professional opinion. Fireman are not qualified to make that decision but fuck me they do like using their 'toys'...

Ungrateful bastards.

Laurie -

StourbridgeRantBoy said...

Also - whiplash takes hours, if not days, to manifest itself not straight away.....

Selfish cunts -

Laurie -

microdave said...

This isn't the first time I've seen the same sort of thing reported.

Oh, and what Bucko says...