Parents sue hotel for child's injuries

[iradney]

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_i...5806303C436596

It doesn't say how old the kid is in the article, but it's probably safe to assume the kid was above the age of 3? 4?

Honestly, I know it's hard to keep an eye on kids, they're small and get in everywhere. But even I knew, as a kidlet, not to drink anything that my Mom or Dad (or teacher) didn't give me.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Imagine this scenario:

You walk into your hotel with a companion, chatting and carrying stuff. You're drinking a soda. You set your soda down. You aren't paying attention, you are running your mouth, shuffling stuff around in your hands. You see your soda where you THINK you left it, grab it, and take a swig.

And some idiot has left a dangerous caustic chemical in a freaking Sprite bottle in your hotel room. You spend the rest of your vacation in the hospital.

How many times have you played "is this my drink?" with other people?

You don't store dangerous chemicals in drink bottles. Especially if yours is the kind of job that has you in close contact with all sorts of public, or heck, even your own co-workers. It doesn't matter if the bottle was left in the corridor or the room. The minute you stick caustic soda in a Sprite bottle, you've created a really high risk situation for someone. You know a kid, or an adult, could grab it in error. You know your co-workers might grab it and take a swig. You know it's a dangerous chemical in an unmarked bottle, which in and of itself is a violation of at least one federal law.

In short, you're boned.

Some lawyer somewhere is about to wet his pants with excitement. And rightly so. Hotel 100 percent in the wrong, in my opinion.

[Plaidman]

I hope they get that quarter million!

[XCashier]

You don't store dangerous chemicals in drink bottles. Especially if yours is the kind of job that has you in close contact with all sorts of public, or heck, even your own co-workers. It doesn't matter if the bottle was left in the corridor or the room. The minute you stick caustic soda in a Sprite bottle, you've created a really high risk situation for someone. You know a kid, or an adult, could grab it in error. You know your co-workers might grab it and take a swig. You know it's a dangerous chemical in an unmarked bottle, which in and of itself is a violation of at least one federal law.

Absolutely. Children love soda pop, and they know what the bottles look like, so if they see one, they're going to take a drink, even if their parents told them not to. It was criminally irresponsible of the hotel staff to use a soda bottle to store degreaser.

I don't know the law in South Africa, but I'm pretty sure it's against federal law in the US to use food containers of any kind to store chemicals. It's not like you can't get a clearly marked spray bottle for cleaning liquids, I've seen them at many stores.

[Shabo]

Yep, dangerous chemical left in soda bottle, even if the kid was being watched by a hawk, there is no warning that the substance in the bottle is dangerous and therefore no way of knowing that the kid is going to be harmed. Hotel is wrong and would be smart to settle out of court.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I'm pretty sure I learned in grade school first aid that you should never store hazardous chemicals in food containers. A drink can be swallowed before it can be spit out.

The hotel might as well begin writing out the check.

[Broomjockey]

yeppers, it's cheque writing and firing time. Whoever left it around gets the boot hard enough to bounce them out of the city.

[iradney]

I dunno about law (i'll have to look it up) but generally stuff like that is stored in cooldrink bottles etc. Might be that corp didn't give em containers to store the chemicals in, or she lost hers or something, but it's a pretty common occurence here. Heck, I think for a while they used to sell paraffin in old glass coke bottles.

Gotta remember tho, chances are the cleaning lady was Black (Disclaimer: I will not say African. I'm African too, ya know, seeing as how I was born here and all), and that's probably the way she saw the others do it, saw her mom do it and all her neighbours.

SA is about 70 % 3rd world, 30% 1st world (and that's being generous). We have alot of poor people that cannot go out and buy a gallon of cleaning fluid, so shops in the shanty towns will decant that gallon in to smaller bottles, thereby making it affordable for the inhabitants of said shanty town to buy the fluid.

Plus, we have no national poison centre like you guys. There are small, independent offices, that AFAIK don't really have anything to do with one another. The hospitals and such like deal with issues pertaining to ingestion or exposure to hazardous substances.

And Dag nabbit, I cannot find any information about laws in South Africa regarding the storage of hazordous chemicals. Closest thing I can find is the Occupational Health and Safety Act of 1993.

Ah, here's the excerpt I'm looking for:

Labelling, packaging, transportation and storage

14. An employer shall, in order to avoid the spread of contamination of an HCS, take steps, as far as is reasonably practicable, to ensure:

(a) that the HCS in storage or distributed are property identified, classified and handled in accordance with SABS 072 and SABS 0228;

(b) that a container or a vehicle in which an HCS is transported is clearly identified, classified and packed in accordance with SABS 0228 and SABS 0229; and

(c) that any container into which an HCS is decanted, is clearly labelled with regard to the contents thereof.

Linky to act

Judging from that, the onus is actually on the employer to maintain certain standards. To assume that the cleaning lady would know is wrong, since she probably doesn't even have a computer at home, let alone internet to look up such information. *sigh*

[Crazyredhead]

Although, when I was a kid I didn't drink anything that wasn't given to me, I also knew not to leave cleaning chemicals in soda/pop bottles. There was a movie that I saw that explained the dangers of storing cleaning chemicals in pop bottles and the dangers of accidentally ingesting them.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I can buy that maybe the cleaning person didn't know better, if this is a common thing where she lives. However, if she is working for the hotel, it is the responsibility of the hotel management to make sure that any hazardous chemicals used in the establishment be properly labeled and stored. Add in the fact that there is indeed a law on the subject, I agree the hotel is negligent in this instance.

[wolfie]

I store fuel additives in pop bottles (the 355 ml Pepsi bottles) because they make convenient "single-serving" containers, but:

- I have removed the labels, so the bottles no longer say "Pepsi".
- The fuel additive (Howe's Diesel Treat) is a pale yellow, and in no way resembles cola.
- The only time the bottles leave the storage bin of my truck is when I am refueling, and only an idiot would drink something they find while rummaging through the storage bins on a truck ("Let's see - there's windshield washer fluid, power steering fluid, oil, coolant, a 2-quart jug of Howe's, and some pop bottles full of something that looks like the Howe's - wonder what they taste like").

IMNSHO, when food containers are re-used for non-food items, there's a big difference between keeping them someplace where only the user or a thief would have access, and keeping them in a public or semi-public place.

[iradney]

I dunno, I've looked everywhere for more info, and I cannot find anything that states the child's age. I think it would make a difference if the kid was above the age of, oh, say 10.