$3m for asthma tragedy
Court orders State to pay grieving family
THE family of a young Cairns woman has been awarded more than $3 million because she was given the “wrong” drug by paramedics after suffering an asthma attack.
Jennifer Leanne Masson was left brain dead following the incident on July 21, 2002.
She was 25 and a chronic asthmatic when she had a serious attack at a friend’s house in Cairns.
Sadly, she died three years ago.
THE State has been ordered to pay more than $3 million to the family of a young Cairns woman who was given the “wrong” drug by paramedics after suffering a serious asthma attack.
Jennifer Leanne Masson was left brain dead following the incident on July 21, 2002.
The Court of Appeal ruled earlier this year Queensland’s ambulance service was “vicariously liable” for the negligence of ambulance officer Clinton Peters, who gave Ms Masson the drug salbutamol when the “clinical practice manual” said adrenaline was the preferred drug.
She was 25 and a chronic asthmatic when the attack happened at a friend’s house in Cairns.
When the Queensland Ambulance Service officers arrived at the scene six minutes after a triple-0 call, she was not breathing, her face was blue, she was flaccid and unresponsive and she was at risk of going into immediate cardiac arrest.
The court found Mr Peters was negligent in not giving Masson a shot of adrenaline immediately when they arrived and the QAS’s negligence was responsible for Ms Masson’s brain damage.
She spent 10 days in the intensive care unit at Cairns Hospital before being flown to the NSW South Coast where she lived with her parents.
She was chronically disabled, barely able to move and unable to feed herself, and required around-the-clock care. She died three years ago. In a judgment handed down by the Supreme Court of Queensland late last week, it said the parties had agreed on the $3 million figure, but a complication had arisen over increasing interest.
The QAS was initially found not to be negligent in a decision in the Cairns Supreme Court last year, but 291 days later this was overturned by the Court of Appeal.
According to last week’s judgment, the State has now been ordered to pay an extra $179,384, which is the interest that accumulated between the two hearings, plus $616.66 per day until payment is made.