A very sad case has been recently exposed by Channel 4 News (source).

Baby Lucus, seven and a half months old, suffered from a neurological disorder called Sturge-Weber, a rare but treatable condition which causes regular convulsions in young children. He was admitted into the Homerton Hospital in East London for treatment following a number of fits. He was under the care of three experienced doctors: a paediatrician consultant, a senior registrar, and a senior house officer. Despite this, Baby Lucus was administered with between 9 and 12 times the recommended dose for a child of his age and weight of an anti-epileptic drug.

The anti-epileptic drug called Phenytoin has the effect of slowing down the heart rate and reducing blood pressure, and once administered, there is no way for the drugs’ effects to be reversed. This meant that, even though the doctors seemed to realise quickly that they had provided an overdose, they were unable to do anything about it. Baby Lucus’ parents report a lengthy silence after the drugs had been administered and then the parents were quickly informed of the mistake. Ms Holzscheiter, Lucus’ mother, recalls that one of the doctors was crying as they came into their room to give them the sad news. Baby Lucus sadly died shortly after the drugs were administered.   
Read the rest of this entry »

Britain’s roads are busy, and our skies are polluted – it’s an overwhelming argument in favour of greener, leaner transport. The government in recent years has done a fair bit to try and inspire this, with cycling lanes and toll roads. But the issue remains that motorists and cyclists have never quite seen eye to eye…

Let’s face it; motorists are wound up by slow cyclists, often leaving them impatient and careless. In the absence of taking the right amount of due care and attention, an accident with a cyclist is a common occurrence. But cyclists can help themselves – and many cyclists do. There is legislation in place to improve the safety of cyclists on our roads. It’s good to see public figures as advocates of such safety; but it’s bizarre to see it go hypocritically wrong:
Read the rest of this entry »

The transportation of Toxic waste to the Ivory Coast, a country in South Africa, is allegedly responsible for the injury of thousands of local people living on the coast line. It is reported that Trafigura, a British and Dutch based company, had attempted to acquire a Dutch Contractor to clean up the waste on one of its ships but the price was too high so the company employed an Ivorian Company to dispose of the waste. The company Trafigura denies any wrong doing.

A UN report shows that the dumped waste can very likely be held accountable for the death of fifteen people in the area, strong evidence suggests.
Read the rest of this entry »

Reports have recently emerged in the media about the death of a stage hand who fell to his death on Thursday 15th July 2010 whilst working at a Will Young concert at Rochester Castle in Kent.

The as yet unnamed 40 year old ‘roadie’ was helping to prepare for the stars open-air show when he plunged off the stage to his death. It is understood that the man, who reportedly suffered severe facial and head injuries, was rushed to Medway Maritime Hospital by South East Coast Ambulance Service but they were unable to save his life and he was pronounced dead on arrival after going into cardiac arrest. A spokesperson for the ambulance service gave the following statement:

“We got called to Rochester Castle to a report of a man in his 40s who had apparently fallen off the stage and had severe facial and head injuries and severe bleeding. We were on the scene within six minutes. The patient was going into cardiac arrest and he was conveyed to the Medway Maritime Hospital. We pre-alerted the hospital of his arrival, which suggests he was in quite a bad way.”
Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve all got our excuses for eating too many chocolate bars at work haven’t we? I was too busy to stop and eat a proper lunch. Stress leads me to chocolate. I won’t be home until late so I ate a chocolate bar to keep me going.

But what if there is a scientific reason behind why we reach for the sweets and chocolates when we are sat at our computer all day?

I read a very interesting article on the Daily Mail website recently, regarding a study which has taken place in Stockholm by a Dr Chaput.
Read the rest of this entry »

The tragic story of Katie Piper is a horrific example of the cruelty and jealousy that one man went to in order to control his girlfriend. Katie Piper modeled for catalogs and also presented a number of short TV programmes, she was a young, beautiful woman who had dreams of working in the TV business.

Katie like many other young people in today’s society, enjoyed socialising on the social network Facebook, she received many emails every day from admirers. One of her admirers in particular, caught her attention, Daniel Lynch. Lynch was a Martial Arts enthusiast, aged 33, he emailed Katie regularly and Katie felt they had a lot in common; she too had been involved with some promotional work in martial arts. Lynch followed Katie’s career and decided to meet her at one of her promotional events in Reading.

Katie thought that Lynch seemed quite shy and nervous at first but sadly this all changed very quickly. At first Katie was flattered by how often Lynch contacted her, he emailed and called her all the time but soon it became quite obsessive, Katie began to feel quite stifled by all the contact and planned to end the relationship but didn’t say anything to Lynch.
Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know about you but I find that we are always being told different things following more and more research into back ache and to be quite frank, never know whether we are coming or going.

Many of us have suffered with back pain at some point in our lives; for many of us it can be severe and debilitating with a life of constant suffering.

We see experts, physiotherapists, chiropractors etc and what is the one thing they all reiterate? It is important to maintain a good posture at all times as poor posture is the most common cause of back pain amongst us.
Read the rest of this entry »

For those who have heard this story in the press recently, you will agree that it is such a tragedy. According to reports from the Mirror (source), police investigating the death of a six year old girl who was crushed by an electric gate have arrested two men on suspicion of manslaughter by gross negligence. 

According to the report, the two men in question, both aged 38, had been sub-contracted to work on the 750kg gate in Moss Side, Manchester. The death of the young girl comes just days before an automatic gate in South Wales killed a five year old child; another story you may be aware of in recent news. 

Enquiries in to the incident are ongoing, however the report also mentions that the developer of Faulkner Gates Ltd was fined £80,000, and ordered to pay £40,000 in costs, after a nine year old boy was crushed to death by an electric gate in Dorset. 
Read the rest of this entry »

A mistake made by The Good Hope Hospital in Birmingham has the cost the life of an innocent lady when they told Jane, 30, that she was “suffering from a migraine”. Jane Harrop was admitted to hospital after suffering very badly from severe head and neck pains; two days later Jane died of a rare brain virus.

This is a very tragic matter which should have been dealt with more efficiently by the NHS doctors. Jane was simply “dosed up on morphine and left to die in a corner” her husband reported. Her husband said that “doctors failed again and again to spot the fatal virus that was killing her and did not transfer her to a specialist brain ward at a nearby hospital because no beds were available”. Jane was given morphine by nurses and left in a bed where nurses “put bars around to stop her climbing out”. This is horrendous treatment for a patient to have to endure. The hospital is now placing an investigation to look into the circumstances of Jane Harrop’s death.
Read the rest of this entry »

This is a shocking story for all you ladies (or even men) out there who like to treat themselves to a new look in the local hair salon now and again. We’ve all done it at some time and many of us do it more often than not but are we leaving ourselves open to serious danger?

I’m talking about going for the elusive cut and colour of course.

We’ve all been doing our hair one day, looked in the mirror and thought “I fancy a change of colour” – we pick up the phone, make that call and don’t think anything more about it.

What happens when your re-style goes wrong, though? How devastating can it really be?
Read the rest of this entry »