The family of a woman found to be severely brain damaged after an asthma attack and treatment by a Queensland paramedic has won their fight for compensation.

May 10, 2019

The family of young Queensland woman severely brain damaged after paramedics treated her for an asthma attack in 2002 have finally won their fight for compensation.

Chronic asthmatic Jennifer Leanne Masson, 25, was blue in the face and struggling for breath when a Queensland Ambulance paramedic initially injected her with salbutamol instead of adrenaline.

“The (QAS clinical practice manual) made sufficiently clear, adrenaline was the preferred drug,” the Brisbane Court of Appeal said in a judgment on Friday.

“(It would have achieved) fast and effective dilation of the bronchial passages, so as to avoid death or the permanent effects of the deprivation of oxygen to the brain.”

The officer continued the treatment for about 20 minutes before switching to adrenaline.

In all, the officer administered twice the maximum dosage recommended by QAS.

Ms Masson was left in a vegetative state following her asthma attack and the treatment delivered by the paramedic. She died in 2016.

Her family alleged paramedics should have administered adrenaline immediately, or at least within a couple of minutes.

The officers were not adequately trained and instructed, they said.

In 2018, a Supreme Court judge found Ms Masson’s brain damage would have been avoided if the adrenaline had been administered more quickly.

But the court rejected the claims of negligence and a $3 million compensation payment agreed upon by the parties was not paid.

On Friday, the Brisbane Court of Appeal overturned the trial judge’s decision.

The decision not to use the preferred method of treatment on Ms Masson should have been found negligent at trial, because it did not conform with QAS guidelines, the judgment said.

“There was no basis, consistent with the exercise of reasonable care and skill by (the paramedic), for him to use what he ought to have understood was a less effective drug for a patient in this critical condition,” said Justice Philip McMurdo.

Lawyers for the Masson family and the government have been ordered to file their submissions on compensation within 28 days.