08-23-2006, 01:52 PM
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Junior Member
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 2
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Infant injured at PCA portrait studio
I had my 7 month old twins at Walmarts PCA portrait studio on Dec 16th 2005. There were 2 staff, myself, my 3 children and some other customers in there. One staff member was in and out. The other was taking my childrens pictures. The following is part of a letter I had written to the manager. It is easier to post it then to try to relive and retype what happened.
Quote:
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I had already had the photo taken of my daughter who is four, with the boys. I was not crazy about the photo, but I could tell the girl who was taking our photos was getting aggravated. I accepted the photo and we were working on taking a photo of the boys together without my daughter. We tried numerous poses, and finally she decided to have them lay on their bellies. At this time, another employee had come in. She saw that I had to run back and forth to try to get the babies to stay lying down. I had been told to sit at the left side of the table. Garrett was on this side. Gavin was on the right side. The next few moments are all a blur to me. I remember seeing a flash of red and hearing a scream. Gavin had flipped off the table. The thud from him falling was so loud that people came in from the store to see what had happened. *******, the employee taking our pictures, looked over and said, “Are we done taking photos?” That was her first reaction. My child was lying on the ground and she was worried about if we were finished with the photo shoot. I moved Gavin out to the waiting area of the studio where another customer helped me take off his clothes and check him for injury. The other PCA employee put Garrett in the stroller for me. My daughter was running around trying to find out what was the matter. ******* brought me over incident reports to have filled out, and again asked me about the pictures that had been taken, if I was interested in buying them. At this time, I noticed the bruising on his head and ribs. The employees took another family back to do their photo shoot. I had to leave my children with a woman, who was in the studio, and walk to the service desk at Wal-Mart and ask for a ambulance. The Wal-Mart managers came down and started shoving yet more paperwork at me. I FINALLY got someone to call the ambulance. A woman standing by me said it had been 20 or 25 minutes since the fall, and no ambulance had been called. The squad came, they checked him out, and said there was no immediate need for treatment, to watch him and if I felt the need, to have him checked out. I finally answered the questions for the incident reports, and started to get my kids around to leave. I already knew, at that point, I was taking my child in to the hospital to be checked out. I told ******* I was going to the hospital, and she yet again tried to sell me the pictures that had been taken. I took out my debit card, and told her to give me the package of all 3 children. I felt like all she wanted me to do was buy the dang pictures. At that point, those pictures were the last thing on my mind. I feel like I was totally disrespected with this whole incident. The whole thing was handled poorly. The second ANY child is injured, the priority should be to call a squad and have the child (or adult) checked out. Not, to try to sell the pictures. I have used PCA studio since my 4 year old was just 10 days old. We have had photos taken every few months since then, and I have spent over one hundred dollars in there almost every time I have been there. I do not know that I will ever feel safe bringing my children back there again. The incident in itself was an accident. I am not disputing that. The way it was handled was a joke. I did not get a follow up call to see how he was. Nobody made sure he was okay. Even when I came in to pick up the pictures, ******* was there and did not ask how he was. I know she remembers us, because she remembered us when we came in there from 2 months earlier when I had their photos done there. She would not even look at me. She could have said “how is he” but no, ignore it and it will go away. I called the 1-800 number that I was given and left six messages. I never got a call back. Instead, I got a sorry for your problem; here is a $40.00 complimentary package coupon. It is not worth it for me to risk my child getting hurt for a free 40.00 package. I had to go to another studio and ask an employee for the direct number to the district manager to get anywhere with this.
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I have photos of everything. I have all of the papers they gave me that day. I was going to let it go b/c I am not the type of person to run out and sue. BUT, to this day, none of the medical bills have been paid by PCA. I have papers saying they would be, but they were not. I called PCA and gave them the hospital info, as well as giving the hospital the info for PCA. Now I am getting bills for the ER care. In addition to this, my son still has marks on his back from this. He crawled later b/c it hurt him due to his ribs.
My question is, Can I do anything? I want the bills paid. If they had done that, not such a big deal. But they did not, and my son has permanent marks on him now.
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