The court considered a claim by a mother who had witnessed her 22 year old daughter motionless in the recovery unit after failing to emerge from anaesthesia following a routine operation to remove a wisdom tooth. Four events said to be shocking were relied upon:
(a) Seeing Catherine motionless in the recovery unit and touching her hand;
(b) Seeing her in the intensive care unit with a variety of tubes present;
(c) Seeing her in the chapel of rest bleeding from her ears with her neck and chest area bruised as if she had been battered;
(d) Being informed that the brain would be kept for examination.
Held: The judge was to decide whether Mrs Ward had suffered PTSD. He said this of the evidence of the Defendants’ consultant psychiatrist: ‘Dr Reveley’s opinion as to PTSD is founded upon a wide experience of reporting upon incidents which without question met the relevant criteria for PTSD – Kings Cross, Hillsborough and other such major disasters. Her insistence that a necessary criterion must be a clearly shocking event of a particularly horrific nature seemed to me to accord with the diagnostic criteria produced in evidence. An event outside the range of human experience, sadly, does not it seems to me encompass the death of a loved one in hospital unless also accompanied by circumstances which were wholly exceptional in some way so as to shock or horrify. Mrs Ward’s own descriptions of these incidents did not strike me as shocking at the time in that sense, although undoubtedly they were distressing. To describe an event as shocking in common parlance is to use an epithet so devalued that it can embrace a very wide range of circumstances. But the sense in which it is used in the diagnostic criteria for PTSD must carry more than that colloquial meaning.’
Judges:
Hawkesworth QC HHJ
Citations:
[2004] EWHC 2106 (QB)
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Liverpool Women’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust v Ronayne CA 17-Jun-2015
The respondent was an experienced ambulance driver. His wife underwent emergency treatment at the appellant’s hospital. He had claimed as a secondary victim for the distress he suffered witnessing her suffering.
Held: The hospital’s appeal . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Professional Negligence
Updated: 18 June 2022; Ref: scu.567372
