Woman who already wore hearing aid wins payout after claiming child's plane scream deafened her
It is every air traveller’s worst nightmare – being stuck next to a screaming child on a long-haul flight. With no escape from the incessant noise, it can be annoying and deafening.
That is what an American tourist claimed after filing a lawsuit against the Australian airline Qantas, saying a child’s screaming left her with hearing damage.
Jean Barnard claimed she has been left partially deaf after a three-year-old boy screamed in her ear before a flight from Alice Springs to Darwin in Australia in 2009.
Screaming pain: Mrs Barnard was removed from the Qantas flight and rushed to hospital after her ears began to cleed
In her lawsuit, the 67-year-old said the toddler’s scream was so loud her ears began to bleed. She was helped off the plane and taken to hospital for treatment and was forced to cut short her holiday.
Mrs Barnard said she had been left with permanent hearing damage and sued the airline for physical and mental suffering, medical expenses and loss of income.
The trauma of the incident meant she had been unable to work as a business consultant, she said.
Mrs Barnard said she had taken her seat on the internal flight when the boy allegedly leaned back over his armrest towards her and let out a scream so severe that blood erupted from her ears, leaving her “stone cold deaf”. No other passengers were injured.
‘The pain was so excruciating that I didn’t even know I was deaf,’ Mrs Barnard said in her statement to the court.
In response, Qantas Airlines argued in court that it was not responsible for a ‘small child’s random, impulsive scream’ because it was not an ‘unexpected or unusual event and not related in any way to the operation of the aircraft’.
The airline argued that Mrs Barnard had a hearing problem before she arrived in Australia, including wearing hearing aids, and that the crew could not be responsible for the acts of a three-year-old.
Counsel for Qantas told the court: ‘Flight attendants cannot predict when children aboard an aircraft are about to scream. There is no evidence that the child was screaming in the terminal, or on board the aircraft prior to the particular scream which allegedly caused the damage.’
The airline also produced an email Mrs Barnard sent to her travel agent, in which she said: ‘I guess we are simply fortunate that my eardrum was exploding and I was swallowing blood.
‘Had it not been for that, I would have dragged that kid out of his mother’s arms and stomped him to death.’
Mrs Barnard and Qantas reached a confidential agreement out of court. Under the terms of the agreement, Mrs Barnard isn’t allowed to discuss the settlement.
A spokesman for Qantas also refused to comment.
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