Lawyer's Eagle Eye Exposes Ambulance Blunder
One of our partners
Mary
Ann
Charles
turned detective to protect the interests of two young clients whose mother died after being failed by a paramedic.
Forensic psychologist
Denise
Hopper,
40, suffered a fatal heart attack while recovering at home from road accident injuries.
The North East Ambulance Service failed to tell her family that she had been misdiagnosed and given the wrong treatment by the crew which called at her house in December 2007. It even kept quiet about disciplining the paramedic.
Two-and-a-half years later Mary Ann, the family’s solicitor, discovered by chance – while reading a newspaper – that the same ambulanceman, had been struck off after failing another patient. She began to investigate and discovered the truth.
A personal injury claim against the ambulance trust was settled in 2011 with a £40,000 payment to the children of
Hopper
, a sole parent. The money was put towards completing university education which
Hopper
dreamed of her children having.
Her son
James
said: “It’s all come about only because our lawyer happened to be reading the paper and made the connection. There’s not a lot we can say which properly vocalises how grateful we are to her.”
His sister
Kerry-Ann
added: “If
Mary
Ann
hadn’t spotted it we might never have known the truth.”
The story was covered widely by the regional and national press, television and online.
