‘She kept asking if she was going to die’
11:20am Friday 8th August 2008
A DISTRAUGHT mum who rushed to hospital after her daughter was run over was handed gauze and water and told to clean the blood from her child’s face.
Rachel Crooks raced to Warrington Hospital after police called to tell her of her daughter Hayley’s accident.
Upon arrival Rachel was handed gauze and warm water by nurses and told to begin cleaning Hayley’s face.
“When I walked in I thought she was wearing a red collar around her there was that much blood. I was in shock,” said Rachel.
“All I could see was her big blue eyes staring out at me,” she said.
“I was crying and in shock at all the blood. They could have at least cleaned her up before I got there,” she said.
“The sight of all the blood made me cry and that really worried Hayley. She kept asking if she was going to die,” said Rachel.
Hayley needed 25 stitches in her face, around her nose, lips and chin.
As well as having to clean the blood from her daughter’s face, Rachel found she had to force staff to give Hayley an x-ray.
Rachel, a community care assistant, was worried a blood clot had formed in Hayley’s calf as it had swollen to near to double its size.
“The nurses said we were over-reacting,” she said. “They made me sound like a neurotic parent.
“The police said that my daughter is the luckiest girl in 2008. A thorn bush broke her fall and if it wasn’t there they said they would not have been visiting her in hospital,” said Rachel.
Hayley, aged 15, was thrown 15 foot in the air when she was hit by the car on Widnes Road, on the border with Penketh and Widnes, on Sunday, July 13.
Police are not prosecuting the driver. “The girl who hit her hasn’t even contacted us to see how Hayley is,” said Rachel.
A spokesman for Warrington Hospital said: “We are sorry if Mrs Crooks felt that Hayley’s initial treatment in A&E was not as expected. We will look into this in further detail with our staff. With some injuries, temporary cleaning and dressing of the wound is required before further assessment by a doctor but there should have been assistance for this. Hayley was seen immediately by a nurse on arrival and when seen by a doctor the injuries were fully cleaned and sutured.
“With regards to x-rays, the doctor who assessed Hayley felt that there was no clinical need for an initial x-ray and that reviewing her condition was the right way forward. On further review by a doctor later in the evening the decision was made to carry out a precautionary x-ray which found no further injury and which was entirely the right thing to do.
“We hope that Hayley has made a good recovery from her injuries and are sorry for any distress that may have been unintentionally caused to her and her family when she arrived.”
l Rachel was also a victim of parking attendants when she went to pick Hayley up from hospital.
Her car was ticketed as she parked in a residents-only parking zone opposite the hospital. Council bosses have erected signs only at the entrance to the street complex and not on each street.