Ryanair had inadequate first aid provisions on flight when child was scalded, says judge

Barrister Anthony Lowry told Judge O’Sullivan that Ryanair had attempted to put blame on the child's mother.

There was inadequate first aid provisions on a Ryanair flight during which a 17-month-old child was scalded and had to sit in pain for more than three hours, a judge said.

Judge Terry O’Sullivan made the remarks in the Circuit Civil Court while considering a €15,000 settlement offer by the airline to Skye Callaghan, who is now seven and lives with her parents at The Avenue, Earlscourt, Kill, Co Kildare.

Barrister Anthony Lowry told Judge O’Sullivan that Ryanair had attempted to put the blame for the accident on Skye’s mother Amanda Callaghan.

The court heard that a motion to attach Ms Callaghan as a third party to the €60,000 personal injury proceedings had failed before County Registrar Rita Considine and again on appeal to Judge John O’Connor.

When Mr Lowry said Ryanair had, in his opinion, quite wrongly attempted to blame Skye’s mother, Judge O’Sullivan said Ryanair had not got away with serving a third-party notice on her.

Judge O’Sullivan was told that Skye, when aged 17 months, was a passenger on a Ryanair flight from Gran Canaria to Dublin on January 2, 2018, with her parents, Gary and Amanda, and had been sleeping on her mother’s lap when a carton of scalding coffee, on which the lid had allegedly been missing or misplaced, had been placed on the seat tray and spilled on the child’s right leg.

Multiple burns

Mr Lowry said Skye had suffered extremely nasty and painful multiple burns to her leg and foot.

“As it happened a lady a few seats back who saw Skye’s mother jump up with her baby in her arms, ran forward and poured three bottles of water over Skye’s leg and foot as her mother tried to pull Skye’s trousers, shoes and socks off so they wouldn’t stick to her skin,” Mr Lowry said.

He said a doctor, who was a passenger on the flight, examined Skye’s wounds and advised she be given Calpol or paracetamol to keep her temperature down and help with her pain and discomfort. At that time a flight attendant had arrived with one small 60ml bottle of burn gel and one sachet of burn dressing. Near the end of the flight, the attendant had found another sachet of the dressing which had also been provided.

When the Ryanair flight landed at Dublin it had been met by an ambulance which had taken Skye to Temple Street Children’s Hospital where her wounds were cleaned, dressed, and examined by a plastic surgeon who noted she had suffered 1st and 2nd degree burns to her right leg and foot. The consultant believed there would be no permanent scarring.

Mr Lowry said liability was fully contested by Ryanair but he had managed to abstract a settlement offer of €15,000 from them despite his valuing the case at about €20,000.

Judge O’Sullivan said contributory negligence was irrelevant and asked Mr Lowry if he would again have talks with the Ryanair legal team with a view to possibly increasing the settlement offer to closer to €20,000.

After a brief adjournment, Mr Lowry said Ryanair had increased its settlement offer to €18,750 which Judge O’Sullivan said he considered fair and approved of the figure being paid into court on Skye’s behalf.

The Callaghans lived at Hermitage Place, Lucan, Co Dublin, at the time of the incident.