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Health and safety farce
Friday, October 9th 2009 10:20
There's been angry reaction to the way paramedics responded to an emergency on a Somerset lake last month.
There's been an angry reaction to the way paramedics responded to an emergency in Somerset last month.
A health and safety row's broken out after a man from Bristol was seriously hurt in an accident on a lake near Woolavington.
Brian Bendle was standing in shallow water at Middlemoor Water Park when a jet ski ploughed into him at 50 miles per hour.
Horrified members of the public ran to his aid, he'd suffered a broken back, six broken ribs and punctured lungs.
But when paramedics got there the crew refused to enter the water, which was just six inches deep, saying health and safety rules wouldn't allow it and that the fire brigade would have to be called to get him out.
Mr Bendle was eventually removed and treated in intensive care in Taunton.
A spokesman for the South Western Ambulance Service has said "the incident was managed in accordance with procedures" but it's bound to reignite the debate over whether health and safety rules in this country have simply gone over the top.
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