Boy awarded €20,000 for ‘shock’ after witnessing school bus accident aftermath

A boy who attended the scene of a traffic accident in which a school bus overturned into a ditch in Limerick has settled a High Court nervous shock action for €20,000.

Joe Gavin was 11-years-old when he witnessed the aftermath of the incident at Caherconlish, Limerick, on February 7th, 2018, where more than 30 students and two adults were taken to hospital with injuries. His sisters were among those injured.

The boy from Templemichael, Caherconlish, Co Limerick, had through his mother, Linda Gavin, sued Curtin Executive Travel Ltd, of Ballyneety, Co Limerick, which operated the school bus service on behalf of Bus Éireann.

In an affidavit to the court, Ms Gavin said her son witnessed the accident aftermath and his sisters in a state of serious injury and significant distress.

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Last year the High Court awarded €50,000 to Ms Gavin for psychological injuries over the incident. She said her daughters were carried from the scene of the accident. She claimed she received a call on the morning of the incident from her eldest daughter screaming “help me” and explaining the bus had crashed and she was bleeding.

She said she went to the scene where she saw a man carrying her eldest daughter, who was unconscious and bleeding from her head. Her youngest was being carried by two classmates.

In the High Court on Monday, Mr Justice Garrett Simons was told that a robust defence had been entered in the boy’s case and it was claimed the child’s attendance at the scene of the accident was not foreseeable and that it was not foreseeable that his parents would bring him to the scene.

The court heard the boy was involved in a road traffic accident in 2019 where the car in which he was a passenger was rear-ended and he had settled an action in the Circuit Court in that case for €26,000.

Approving the settlement, Mr Justice Simons noted the claim was a nervous shock type one where the boy claimed he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder. The judge noted he had made a very good recovery.

The judge referred to one report from a child psychiatrist who reported the boy did not develop any symptoms until the 2019 accident.