A WOMAN seeking £2.5 million damages from a local authority told a court how a Sunday afternoon visit to a play park with her granddaughter ended with her spending months in a spinal injuries unit.
Heather Campbell said she lost her footing as she went up steps near the swing park on her journey back home and "went right back" after letting go of the child's hand.
She said her "automatic reaction" was to release her hold on her granddaughter's hand so the child did not fall with her.
Ms Campbell, who gave her evidence from a wheelchair, said: "I don't remember a single thing after I fell."
She told the Court of Session in Edinburgh her next memory was of a nurse telling her she was in an intensive care unit and had broken her neck.
Ms Campbell, 49, said that after her fall people told her the set of steps were "dangerous".
She said she believed repairs were carried out to the stairs about two or three months afterwards but did not know what had been done to them.
After her fall, lawyers acting for Ms Campbell raised a claim for £2.5m damages against Falkirk Council, with the local authority denying liability.
It is maintained the local authority was responsible for the construction, maintenance and safety of the steps near Davaar Place, Falkirk, where she fell on June 22, 2008.
In the action it was claimed the steps had been in a dangerous condition for at least 10 years and other members of the public have fallen on them.
It is said: "The pursuer (Ms Campbell) does not recall precisely how she lost her footing, but it is likely she did so due to the dangerous state of the stairs."
It is said she was knocked unconscious and found in a pool of blood.
In the action it is said Ms Campbell is essentially housebound following the accident.
The local authority said the circumstances in which she came to sustain injury were not known and no-one had witnessed the fall.
On the day of the fall she had left her home in Cumbrae Drive, Falkirk, after lunch to take her granddaughter, who was a month away from her third birthday, to the swing park.
After about an hour-and-a-half they started out to return home and went via the steps, which she did not remember using before.
She said she was not aware of a damaged step as she was "just concentrating on my granddaughter".
Ms Campbell said she was walking up the steps when she realised she was "going backwards".
"I don't remember exactly what step I was on but I was walking up the stairs," she added. "I just knew I lost my footing and I went backwards," she told the court.
"I let go her hand and swung my arm round to try and catch something but I just went back," she said.
"I let her hand go as quickly as I possibly could because she would have come back with me."
She told her counsel, Leo Hofford, QC, she remembered nothing after the fall.
Her next memory was of a nurse telling her she was in intensive care in Stirling Royal Infirmary and she was being transferred to a hospital in Glasgow.
She said someone must have phoned an ambulance and she had been told a person came out of a house because they heard her granddaughter screaming.
Ms Campbell told the court she had had one glass of wine with her Sunday lunch as a treat for herself.
The hearing before Lord Pentland continues.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article