Added: Aug 18, 2009

From: hotelinjuryreports

Duration: 2:36

The family tries to take one family vacation a year. This vacation almost did not happen due to the economy and both parents unable to find a job. The oldest daughter (15) donated her birthday money to pay for a one night stay at a hotel on the beach close to home, which the family were delighted with. Check in time was 4pm. The family arrived at 4.30ish pm. Placed their overnight bags in the room and ran out to spend some time on the beach before it got to dark. They returned 4 hours later and got ready to go and get some supper. The youngest daughter (always a neat freak) wanted to put her bag away. She opened the drawer (which as the video shows) did not have a catch on it and fell right out. She was wearing flip flops. It sliced her large toe. She is usually very tolerant of pain but this seemed to hurt her a lot. With the blood gushing out and the toe swelling the family applied ice, pressure and bandaid and her dad piggy-backed her downstairs to ask the front desk for a 1st aid kit to help and advice. The lady at the front desk told them that they could not give out any more than a band aid (which they already had) and directed them to the nearest urgent care and hospital. The manager took a picture and filled out an incident report. She also went up to the room with maintenence to look at the drawers. The urgent care was closed and the hospital informed the family that there was a 7 hour wait and the bill could run as high as $5000. As the mom is a physician she decided to go to Walgreens and get some ace=wrap and tape (buddy tape), neosporin, motrin, a splint etc and the cheapest plastic shoes she could find ($5) as her daughter could not wear the flip flops (due to the buddy taping). They returned to the hotel. The daughter was concerned about sleeping in a double bed with her siblings in case they bumped her toe at night. They asked the front desk for a cot and were told that the hotel did not have one. They asked for some pillows and blankets (so she could sleep on the floor). They were told that the hotel did not have any but that they could give the family a sheet. The family waited for 2 hours for the sheet before calling again and only then were told to come down and get it themselves (which they did). The daughter was up in pain all night and the parents were awake with her. In the morning it was apparent that the daughter was not going to the beach. The mom recognized that the daughter had developed a subungal hematoma (blood collecting under the toenail and pushing down on the toe). It was this that was causing all the pain. The mom evacuatied the clot with a paper clip. However the daughter could still not go into the salty water or the sand. The other 2 children really wanted to spend some time on the beach. The parents were exhausted. Check out time was 11am. The parents spoke with the gentleman (manager) at the front desk who seemed very concerned with getting out of his shift as he said he was not feeling well. He told the family that he did not get any report about any incident. The family asked if anyone was staying in the room that day. He told them "no" and said that the hotels were barely booked. The parents asked if the hotel would comp them one night so that the parents could sleep (as too tired to drive home), the 2 kids could spend some vacation time at the beach and asked to be compensated for the $29 from Walgreens. They were told "No. Accidents happen". The parents reminded him that the accident occurred only because of the hotels negligence. They could understand if their daughter had been jumping on the beds or running and slipped and got hurt because she was being careless, that they would never consider asking for anything. Also the Walgreens bill was $29 as opposed to the $5000 it could have been at the ER. The family was told that how the accident occurred was not in question but that "it was an accident and accidents happen". Unfortunately the daughter is a dancer, a ballerina and is in intense rehearsals for an upcoming production. This family was not treated right and we hope that they will take this further. Hotels.com will definitely have a report regarding this incident.

Channel: Travel

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