Boy offered ‘inappropriate’ first aid at summer camp gets €34,000 settlement

First-aid treatment offered to an injured nine-year-old boy at a golf summer camp was described in the Circuit Civil Court on Friday as egregiously inappropriate and inadequate.

Judge John O’Connor approved a compensation offer of almost €34,000 to Erwan Rafferty Louis, now aged 14, on behalf of four defendants, Castleknock Golf Club, BRBM Golf and Leisure, CGLF Limited and Glenveagh Properties.

Barrister Gareth Kinsella told the court that the boy had been playing a game of rounders at the golf club five years ago when he fell. His games supervisor, who had been running close to him, had fallen on top of the boy.

The judge heard that the boy of Luttrellstown Drive, Castleknock, Dublin 15, had broken bones in his left arm in the accident. The only treatment he had received at the scene was the application of a piece of frozen meat to his arm.

Mr Kinsella, who appeared with Williams Solicitors for the boy and his mother, Aisling Louis, told the court that Erwan had not received any further medical treatment until his mother had called to the club and had taken him to hospital. She had left him at the golf club three hours earlier.

Surgery

He said X-rays in the emergency department of Temple Street Childrens’ Hospital revealed he had fractures to both bones in his left forearm but the swelling had been such that surgery had to be postponed for a week.

The boy’s arm had been put in a cast and sling and he returned to the hospital a week later to undergo correctional K-wire surgery under general anaesthetic.

The boy through his mother had sued Castleknock Golf Club as well as Dublin-based companies BRBM Golf and Leisure, Cglf Limited and Glenveagh Properties Plc. Mr Kinsella said the Injuries Board had assessed compensation at €32,000 and a settlement on behalf of all defendants had been made to the boy, along with almost €1,600 special damages.

In a legal opinion to the court Mr Kinsella said that while he considered the behaviour of the course supervisors to have been egregiously inappropriate and inadequate after the accident, he considered the settlement a good one.

Judge O’Connor, who heard there had been no post-accident abnormalities arising from the boy’s injuries, approved the assessment and settlement offer.