Question
Mike was a fifteen-year-old boy with behavioural difficulties. In the past, he committed a number of arson attacks and vandalism. As a result, he lived
Mike was a fifteen-year-old boy with behavioural difficulties. In the past, he committed a number of arson attacks and vandalism. As a result, he lived at Hollowdale, a special school managed by Rubin County Council, which was situated three miles from a village. Recently, Rubin County Council cut the budget of the school funding. Consequently, only one member of staff, Jo, worked at night time. Taking the opportunity that Jo was not able to supervise all the rooms in the school, Mike escaped from the school by scaling a wall surrounding Hollowdale and ran towards the village. At the edge of the village, Mike was seen by Lynn who was driving home, and thought that she recognised him as she previously worked at Hollowdale. Mike picked up a stone and threw it at Lynn's car and damaged a panel of the glass window. Lynn felt very scared and quickly accelerated and drove off. Lynn drove the car at an excessive speed (50 mph) in a residential area and collided with a pedestrian, Jim, causing him a severe neck trauma and a broken arm which resulted in immediate blood loss. Lynn stopped the car and called 999 for an ambulance. The ambulance operator Katie was a trainee and was not familiar with the site of the accident. She ended up sending an ambulance to another location 10 miles away from where Jim lay bleeding. No ambulance showed up at the accident site even after 40 minutes from the call. Having observed the car accident from the start and worrying that Jim was losing too much blood, Elliott, a passer-by, decided to haul Jim into his car and take him to a nearby hospital. However, by moving Jim without following the proper procedure required when moving victims of neck trauma, Jim sustained a full lower body paralysis as a result. Elliott told the doctor that he felt he had no choice given Jim's rapid blood loss at the scene of the accident. The attending doctor informed Elliott that a trained professional would have tried to stop the bleeding as a first resort while waiting for an ambulance to arrive so that the patient is moved in accordance with the proper neck trauma protocol. In fact, the ambulance arrived only 5 minutes after Elliott drove Jim away in his car. Meanwhile, Mike ran into the village and entered Aya's house. Using matches stolen from the kitchen at Hollowdale, he set fire to the house. Aya awoke surrounded by smoke. She telephoned the emergency services and requested assistance. The Rubin Fire Service sent a fire engine from its major depot at Petchy, a town about five miles from the village. However, its driver got lost. By the time that the engine arrived, the house had completely burned down. One of the firefighters, Andrew, worked at the site for five hours, trying to rescue Aya who accidently locked herself up in a large steel cabinet due to the poor visibility caused by the smoke. When Andrew finally opened the cabinet and saw the severely burnt Aya, he was horrified. Two months later, Andrew was diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder following the incident and was unable to continue his work as a firefighter. Although the police searched for Mike, he was never found again.
Advise as to possible claims in negligence.
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