- Jasbir Sahota suffered crippling injuries following an incident in February
- The family are now asking Menzies to pay for specialist treatment at a cost of around £300,000
The family of a Heathrow baggage handler who suffered brain damage after her scarf got caught in machinery and was dragged on a conveyor belt are taking legal action against her employers.
Jasbir Sahota, who has worked at the airport for 30 years, was left seriously injured after the February 14 accident.
The 52-year-old woman was unloading her luggage from a Loganair flight arriving in the capital from Dundee when a piece of her clothing got caught in the machine.
The incident caused disabling injuries as well as brain damage, leaving Ms. Sahota in need of professional care.
Now her family is demanding that her employer Menzies, a global aviation services company, pay for her transfer from Hillingdon Hospital to Wellington Hospital – a private facility that provides the comprehensive care Ms Sahota requires.
Her two children, Nina Haer and Harman Sahota, along with brother-in-law Satti, told The Telegraph that the firm “treated her like a number rather than a valued employee” and that they were forced to take legal action.
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“I deserve the best care and the best treatment and that’s just not available from the NHS,” Satti said. “For her to have any chance of improvement, she needs to move to Wellington.
“Every day she stays at Hillingdon – and they do what they can – is a day we lose her and it’s terrible.
The family said Menzies offered to help them after the accident, but the only help they got was a company paying for taxis to and from the hospital.
They added that the company has lost contact with them and now rarely contacts them.
According to Nina, no one enjoyed their work more than Mrs. Sahota, whose condition took its toll on the people around her.
Financially, the transfer to Wellington would cost around £300,000, which is more than her family can afford.
Meanwhile, Harman, 24, was forced to take time off from his job as a signal engineer at Network Rail for stress-related reasons.
Nina also had to adapt and took a less demanding position with a recruitment company near the family home in Hayes, West London.
Founded as a wholesaler and bookshop in Edinburgh by John Menzies in 1833, Menzies now covers cargo handling, passenger services and ground operations at airports around the world, with revenues of $2.2 billion last year.
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Lawyers for Ms Sahota’s family have found a number of grounds which they say raise questions about Menzies’ commitment to protecting the health and safety of its employees.
On Christmas Day 2016, Rebecca Smith was injured when she fell through a gap in the railing of a luggage belt loader.
The incident occurred when a moving vehicle hit the loader and a Health and Safety Executive investigation into the incident found that the firm had foreseen the risk of a collision between such vehicles but failed to act to mitigate the risk of driver error. .
Menzies, who pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, was fined £181,500 with costs of £21,043.
The case comes after the firm was fined £60,000 by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) following the death of Cesar Valenzuela, 51, who was thrown from a baggage cart at Los Angeles International Airport.
Mr. Valenzuela was found not to have a functional seat belt.
Ms Sahot’s Fieldfisher lawyers are heading to court in the next few weeks to seek disclosure of material that could help with a possible future negligence claim.
A Menzies spokesman told MailOnline: “There is an active investigation following a serious incident involving a Menzies employee at Heathrow Airport earlier this year.
“As this is ongoing, we cannot provide any further details at this time. Our thoughts are with our colleague and their family.”
Heathrow Airport declined to comment.