A trip to find a new school uniform ahead of the return to the classroom resulted in surgery for a five-year-old girl, after her throat was “slit” in an accident at Hatfield Asda.
Samantha Williams is warning other parents about the clothes section at the superstore after her daughter Poppy tripped up and went into the rail where she was injured.
“I just want to make other parents aware as the next child might not be so lucky,” the 38-year-old told the WHT.
“Thankfully it was a completely different story for Poppy.”
“The surgeon told us how lucky she was not to be hit in her jugular, which was very close, and she could have ended up with a life-changing condition.”
But thankfully, the mother-of-two was helped on Thursday, August 27, at around 11am by Asda staff who brought a first aider and called the ambulance to take Poppy to Lister Hospital in Stevenage.
She then had surgery for an hour and is now “fine” and “recovering brilliantly” – although running around and playing are still difficult in case her stitches come out.
The cut on Poppy’s neck was 8cm wide and 2cm deep and will not mean another trip to the hospital as the stitches dissolve.
Samantha continued: “She has been affected psychologically – I had to pull into the Asda car park to go to the town centre recently and she got very upset, even though I wasn’t going into that store, and it took a long time to reassure her.
“I think we are all traumatised and she’s very afraid.”
Despite the quick thinking at the time of the accident, Samantha feels Asda have not reacted quickly on looking into whether the clothes rail are safe and she thinks the response she received from head office has been inadequate.
“They said they would look at safety and contact the manager and thanked me for bringing it to their attention along with a £30 voucher,” she said.
“I have never been so scared. That shouldn’t happen when you’re just going to the supermarket.”
The family is now looking into whether or not to pursue legal action in the civil court as they are terrified this might happen to other parents and children in the future.
Asda was approached for comment but this was not received before the WHT went to press.
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