When there are no legal proceedings, it’s just a tragic accident
What happened?
A 12 year-old girl was attending a PE lesson at her school, when she fell from a pommel horse. The girl sadly died, with a post-mortem examination finding she suffered a hyper-extension injury to the neck.
At the inquest, the Assistant Head and PE teacher described how she had organised the ‘basic flight’ gym class. She said the girl was “confident, enthusiastic and one of the better gymnasts in the class. In the last ten or fifteen minutes, the students could select which piece of equipment they wanted to go on and she selected the horse.
“She ran up perfectly well but as she jumped her right foot caught the front-end and she tumbled forward and landed face down on the mat almost in the recovery position. As she lay on the ground she tried to mouth words, but it was very difficult to hear what she was saying,” the PE teacher said.
She died in hospital a week later.
The inquest heard she had a pre-existing neck condition, which could have limited her ability to take part in gymnastics. The school knew about the condition. The pathologist, however, found the injuries suffered in the fall could have killed somebody with an ‘anatomically normal’ neck.
Legal Outcome
The death of a 12-year-old girl was an accident, an inquest jury ruled.
The Police and the Health and Safety Executive found no evidence of any failings.
What can we learn from what happened?
There were no criminal proceedings, and it is not known if there was any civil law action taken, so the outcome of the inquest and the absence of legal proceedings mean that nothing can be deduced from the prior knowledge the school had of the girl’s neck condition.
What can be taken from this sad accident is that there are risks to be managed, even in the best run 12 year-old PE lesson, and especially when the activity involves moving at speed, moving through the air, and the potential for head first contact with any kind of surface.
Source of Information
QLM Newsletter
BBC News Online