A tragedy in the making.

                                           

On 22nd December 2014 there was a terrible  incident in Glasgow city centre when a bin lorry went out of control and killed six people. Any of you who have visited Scotland and arrived in Glasgow at Queen Street Rail Station on the north side of George Sq will have walked past the hotel where the bin lorry finally came to rest.

Glasgow was full of Christmas shoppers and the nation was stunned at what had happened.Initially the fears were that  it had been a terrorist incident. but simply, the driver had lost control. He lost consciousness. He was seen slumped at the wheel as the vehicle careered down a busy shopping street, mounting the pavement, mowing Christmas shoppers down, before crashing into the Millennium Hotel and coming to rest.

The whole incident took less than 20 seconds, nobody had time to react. 

These massive vehicles have no  dead man’s handle, nobody could reach the  handbrake to attempt to slow it down as the other two people in the cabin were in the back compartment and couldn’t get through to the driver.

                                       

 At the time, the identity of the driver of the vehicle was protected,  and a spokesman for Glasgow City Council, said it would “never release the names”  of the three men in the cabin when the incident happened.

Nobody blamed the driver, it was made very clear on social media  to him and his family, from the families of the bereaved that they did not want any guilt to impede his recovery from his own injuries.  It was widely speculated, and accepted, that he had suffered some kind of cardiac incident.

The dead included 68-year-old Jack and 69-year-old Lorraine Sweeney,  and their granddaughter Erin who was only 18. They had been on  a family day out in Glasgow Christmas shopping. And as all families do - they had split up. 'You go there, we’ll nip into this shop, we’ll meet you on the corner in twenty minutes.'  Doing normal Christmas shopping stuff so nobody sees the presents being purchased.  Their daughter/mother was on the other side of the pavement and saw it happen. How does anybody recover from that?

Three others died, another ten were injured badly enough to warrant a long hospital stay, five more were less seriously hurt.

The driver, a 57-year-old man, was in the Western Infirmary, his condition after the incident was stable.

                           
                                       From the Daily Mirror

It’s now August and the fatal accident inquiry (FAI ) is well underway. It might be poignant to say at this point that some pathologists feel these should be called FIIs, Fatal incident Inquiries as they are not always accidents.

The driver has now been named as Harry Clark aged 57  at the time of the incident. All the facts are  not clear, but he did black out while at the wheel. The stunning news is that it was not the first time.

I have a close friend who works for  a council ( not Glasgow) and  has told me many a time, that something like this was bound to happen one day- lack of resources, lack of staff, people under pressure, people not checking health references. 
The truth is that we presume/rely that people tell the truth.

It turns out that Harry used to drive a bus and had suffered a blackout while doing that job ie he lost consciousness when at the wheel but the bus was stationary at the time. He told his GP that he fainted when he was standing in the queue in the canteen and he was very hot and it was a simple faint.

Tragically the GP took that at face value, did an examination of heart, lungs etc and pronounced him fit. (That would be in the less than 10 minutes appt slot a GP has to see a patient in the NHS).  The GP repeated that version in a letter but  it was claimed at the FAI that  Harry ‘lied through his teeth’ to doctors and the council will now have a full disciplinary investigation.

Harry did ask if he should inform DVLA ( Driver Vehicle Licencing Agency) and was told 'no' as a fainting fit with other circumstances is not a reason to inform the DVLA - so fainting when being very hot, being very pregnant, just recovering from flu is ok – it is presumed that you deem yourself unfit to drive until you feel better. Strokes, epilepsy or unexplained blackouts are a very different matter.

Harry  claimed in his job application that he had no previous incidents of blackouts, so  when he joined the council he did not disclose the fainting incidentl. He did not disclose his problem on any  job applications form. He is even said to have denied any issues after the incident in George Sq.

                                     

                                                     From the Daily Record

The council recruitment did not check through his references or get in touch with his doctor  although the FAI has heard claims that Harry had a history of many absent days due to sickness  before his fainting spell on the bus. He had according to some sources been ‘dizzy for decades’ and, if true, that would have deemed him unfit to drive until there was a period (usually years) of being symptom free and the condition being controlled by appropriate medication.

Only today on  06/08/2015 has Harry been  suspended from his job.

I’d like to stress that Harry has not yet been able to  refute any of the claims above so this version is only one side of the story.

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Harry’s Gp, had certified him fit to return to work after the earlier blackout ( the one that was on the bus but is alleged Harry told the GP it was  "at work, in canteen, hot environment, no warning signs"). Later Harry repeated to another GP that  he fainted in the work canteen and said this time he had felt  light-headed beforehand.

The doctor from the bus company’s report states that Harry did indeed faint while on the bus.

The solicitor advocate acting for one of the victims asked the GP  "Mr Clarke has lied through his teeth to you and **** and one of the reasons he has got away with it is because you failed to properly interrogate and tease out the details of the incident at your encounter with him."

The Dr replied: "If a patient misled me or lied to me, that's not something I usually expect to happen."

In early February, this is what Harry said....

"I want to be able to reach out to the injured and families of those who died on December 22.

I can’t really think how to express myself. I just want all the families and the public to know that I appreciate all the support they have given me through the newspapers and also the cards people have sent me.

I’ve felt awful not speaking out before now but I was in hospital and my health hasn’t really improved much at all.

I am not saying that to get sympathy, I don’t want that, but I don’t want the families to think I have been hiding, I haven’t. I am just anxious that I don’t upset anyone.

Now I feel I need to make a statement to ensure everyone knows I grieve for everyone involved in the accident.

I understand a lot of people want to know what happened that day. I wish I could tell you but I can’t.

I had never had anything wrong with my heart until that day.

I know going forward that won’t help the families but I just want all the families of injured or deceased victims to know I can’t remember anything – I wish I could but I was unconscious.

I have racked my brain to try to remember but I can’t. I will never know what happened other than other people telling me what they saw. Every day is a struggle.

I have worked all my life. I just lived a normal life. Nothing will ever be normal for me or any of the families ever again.

I think of everyone every minute of every day.

My daughter and I appreciate that the media have not hounded me as they could have.

And while I am speaking out today, it is for all those affected and not about me.

We all just want to grieve in private and hopefully everyone’s privacy can be maintained."

All food for thought. I can see big changes coming.
Caro 07 08 2015