Injury on holiday in Turkey

A Birmingham woman has received £56,000 in an out of court settlement after she was seriously injured abroad while on a family holiday to Turkey.

Pauline Goodall, (63), along with her daughter and granddaughter, travelled with Thomas Cook Tour Operations Limited to the Lunamar Apartments in Marmaris, a popular yacht charter, holiday and sailing resort in Turkey in August 2004.

The accident happened on the evening of the second night of Mrs Goodall's holiday as she walked along a corridor when a waiter came running through a door in the opposite direction and slipped on the marble floor, which had recently been cleaned and remained wet, causing him to collide with Mrs Goodall who landed heavily on her left knee.

Mrs Goodall was immediately transferred to the Private Caria Hospital in Marmaris by taxi, where she was seen by a GP and had x-rays taken. She was told she had only sustained ligament damage and sent back to the hotel.

However she returned to hospital the next day, as she remained in severe pain, and further tests showed that she had in fact fractured her knee and required a bone fusion operation, the procedure took place in three days later in a Turkish hospital.

Two days after the operation Mrs Goodall was discharged but remained confined to her hotel room. She was forced to delay her flight back to the UK as she required extra leg room and her problems were compounded in that the only available flight was to Stansted rather than Birmingham.

Mrs Goodall's injuries were so severe that on arrival to Stansted an ambulance was required to transfer her to the Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham where she had a full leg plaster applied.

Due to her injuries Mrs Goodall had to leave her job at the residential home in which she worked as a kitchen assistant and she remains unemployed. She also now walks with the aid of a stick and faces a knee replacement operation.

Mrs Goodall said "It was a very traumatic and upsetting experience that has left me facing future problems and has disrupted my life."

Amandeep Dhillon, from the Travel Law team at Irwin Mitchell who represented Mrs Goodall said "these types of incidents can be avoided if basic health and safety procedures are implemented within hotels."

"Mrs Goodall's lifestyle has been severely impacted to the point where she cannot return to work or pursue any of the activities she used to enjoy. Hopefully this will serve as a reminder to those providing such holidays of their responsibilities to customers and the pitfalls of failing to ensure that these responsibilities are observed."