Jamie Merret - Clinical Negligence Case

Tetraplegic man Jamie Merrett's life support 'turned off by mistake'

We are acting for the family of Mr Jamie Merrett 37, from Devizes, whose ventilator was switched off (as seen in the photograph below) by an agency nurse working for the NHS, leaving him brain-damaged.

Mr Merrett has been cared for at home on a life-support machine since 2002 after being left paralysed from the neck downwards following a road accident. Mr Merrett was able to use a wheelchair and was able to talk and operate a computer using despite being tetraplegic.

His sister Karren Reynolds said he had become increasingly worried about serious errors involving nurses operating his ventilator, but claimed that health bosses did not act on e-mails of concern which he sent them.

Mr Merrett had a bedside camera set up at his home in Wiltshire, after becoming concerned about the care he was receiving and within days, it captured Nurse Violetta Aylward switching off his life support machine by mistake. After 21 minutes, the machine was restarted by paramedics, but by then Mr Merrett had suffered serious brain damage.

Ms Reynolds said his level of understanding had dropped to that of a young child. "His life is completely changed. He doesn't have a life now," she said. "He has an existence but it's nowhere near what it was before. He is very brain damaged compared to what he was before. He was a highly intelligent man and you could have long in-depth conversations with him and now it tends to be more simplistic."

The programme about Jamie Merrett was shown on Inside Out West and Inside Out South on BBC One at 1930 BST on Monday 25 October 2010. Click to view.