A Waterfall couple are outraged at the Airports Company of South Africa (Acsa) after the top of their two-year-old son’s finger was almost severed in an accident on the escalators at King Shaka International Airport – and no first aid-trained official or first-aid kit was available.
The airport’s medical unit was not answering phone calls and the door to the facility was locked at the time.
It has now been almost three months since the incident and the Hawkins family – who had touched down in Durban after living in the UK for 14 years – have still not received a response from Acsa, even after logging several complaints and requests for follow up.
Last week, The Mercury reported on two other incidents in which passengers were hurt on the escalators at the airport, and that there had been no immediate assistance from Acsa.
In that article, Acsa spokesman Colin Naidoo said: “Should they sustain any injuries (on the escalators), they should go or be directed to the airport clinic, which is operational from 5am to the last arriving flight. We have a clinic which is open according to the airport’s operational hours and trained fire-and-rescue staff, who are also trained paramedics.”
But Rosemary Hawkins said this was not the case on June 1, when she and her sons, Cameron, five, and Kieran, two – each pulling their own travel bags – arrived from the UK. They were riding on the escalators near passport control when Kieran slipped.
The boy slid along until he reached the floor plate and landing platform, where the stairs flatten and disappear, and his bag stopped him sliding further. However, his finger was sliced.
“Another passenger picked him up and when I saw his finger was almost severed, I shouted for someone to get a first aider or a first-aid box,” said Hawkins. “A member of the flight crew tried to get hold of the medical unit, but no one was answering the phone.”
The top of Kieran’s finger was hanging to the side and only attached by a piece of flesh, his mother said.
Hawkins, who is trained in first aid, asked for a first-aid kit, but one could not be found. She was holding her son’s hand above his head to reduce the bleeding.
“Some of the flight crew asked the security guards if they could go back to the plane to get their first-aid kit, but the guards wouldn’t allow them to,” she said.
Hawkins said someone then called emergency fire staff, who arrived with a first-aid kit, but one of them wanted to wrap Kieran’s finger in cotton wool, which horrified her. “If the little fibres got in there, then they could poison him. I asked them to get me some gauze, but they didn’t know what that was? They admitted that they were not trained paramedics.”
Eventually Hawkins used a muslin cloth from her bag to bind her son’s finger and a guard phoned the Alberlito Hospital, in Ballito, which sent an ambulance and contacted a doctor to go to the airport.
Escorted by police, Hawkins carried her son up another escalator and to the airport clinic, only to find it was locked.
When they eventually got inside, the doctor strapped up Kieran’s finger before sending him to hospital, where trauma staff feared it might have to be amputated. Although it was sewn back successfully, and the nail bed was saved, Kieran no longer uses his finger and has switched to using his left hand.
Although Hawkins praised the Emirates airlines crew – who stayed with her and her sons until they went to hospital – and the airport security staff, she was furious that Acsa had still not responded to the incident report.
She said that she and her husband were considering taking legal action.
Naidoo said he was investigating the matter and would respond on Monday.
* This article by Bronwyn Gerretsen was originally published on page 4 of The Mercury on August 30, 2010