Anger at bar injury

When a young builder arrived at Sale St bar in central Auckland to celebrate New Year's Eve, he had 10 full fingers. He left in an ambulance with three fingers badly damaged.

As detailed in an incident report from Sale St,  Rick*  was on the dance floor when a fight broke out near him and he was pushed. Reaching out to steady himself, his hand came into contact with the blades of an antique fan set up to keep the DJ cool. He suffered deep lacerations to three of his fingers, one of which has now been amputated at the tip.

The following seven months saw him off work and on ACC, his weekly income dropping from around $1000 a week to $340.

His mother, Carole*,  is incensed by her son's ordeal and disappointed with the reaction from the bar.

"This is not some tin-pot bar way out the back of beyond. You don't go out on  New Year's Eve and expect your hand to be minced. I went back five months later and the fan was still being used. It was sitting above some women at a table."

But Sale St operations manager Steve Schute says the fan, brought in for decorative purposes, was  used only on New Year's Eve night and has since been disconnected.

Carole contacted the Department of Labour, which discovered the incident had not been reported.

Mr Schute says the former operations manager, Luke Dallow, was not aware incidents involving patrons needed to be reported. "[He] understood the Department of Labour was only involved in staff-related injuries, not public incidents."

Due to the financial loss incurred by her son, to the point he says he has had to "borrow money to make ends meet", there were requests made for compensation by the bar. "[The mother] has approached us several times this year regarding financial compensation for her son," says Mr Schute.

"However, incidents such as this are covered by ACC. Everyone in New Zealand is eligible for comprehensive injury cover through ACC, no matter what they're doing or where an injury takes place."

Carole says it was a person at the contact centre at the Department of Labour who suggested she go to the bar for compensation. She says money was never her priority but she wanted to see the bar acknowledge the incident was because of  its negligence.

In a letter to the mother earlier this month, Sale St director Andrew Campbell said:  "Whilst the injury to your son was extremely unfortunate, we cannot safeguard against every eventuality and we are confident that Sale St has no liability in this regard."

A health and safety inspector noted the company, with its core business in hospitality, had failed to include the fan as a hazard.

Mr Schute says the bar has now complied with requests to safeguard the fan.

"His injury was an unfortunate accident for which no one is to blame. We appreciate that [he] suffered a bad cut to his finger at our bar last New Year and understand he lost the tip of that same finger several months later.

"We have never had an incident such as this occur at Sale St before and are extremely confident it will never occur again."

The Department of Labour told Carole that  she could seek legal advice and take a private prosecution.

But she says the family cannot afford legal fees and feels stonewalled. "We couldn't afford to take a private prosecution. It's a David and Goliath situation."

Rick and his mother asked their real names be withheld.