A TEENAGER whose left leg was punctured when he sat on a bloody syringe hidden in the back seat of a bus was awarded €25,000 damages against Dublin Bus yesterday.
Judge Joseph Mathews said in the Circuit Civil Court that the bus company’s practice of regular visual inspections of back seats in the upper decks of buses was not good enough.
He told barrister Kevin D’Arcy, counsel for Garreth Quinn (20), that it would cost little in both money and time for the crevices in back seats to be probed with some sort of steel claw for needles and syringes.
Mr Quinn, St Mark’s Drive, Clondalkin, Dublin, said he felt a prick in his leg when he sat down on the 78A bus at the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre terminus in February 2005. He saw the needle sticking out of the seat and checked his thigh where he saw a puncture wound. He reported the incident to the driver who called an ambulance and brought him to hospital.
Mr D’Arcy told the court that examination of the syringe revealed clotted blood in the barrel. Tests showed indeterminate contamination results.
Mr Quinn, then a 15-year-old schoolboy, had to undergo injections for inoculation and blood tests and did not receive the all-clear on hepatitis C and hepatitis B infection for another three years.
Judge Mathews said Mr Quinn was entitled to €15,000 damages for suffering to date and a further €10,000 for suffering into the future.