Originally Posted by PTravel
. . . With that said, nothing I've read indicates that the woman who dropped the bag committed a criminal act. Call the police? Call her a "perp"? Please! It would have been courteous for her to stay, and I'd think she'd care whether she accidently hurt someone, but I'm not aware of ANY law, civil or criminal, that required her to remain (and I am a lawyer -- and, no, this isn't legal advice, no one here is my client, for legal advice retain a lawyer, etc.).
. . . And, at the risk of incurring some flames, let me also suggest this: an airplane cabin, particularly during boarding and deplaning, is a crowded, chaotic place. We adults recognize that there are heavy things in the overhead bins, and our general awareness and peripheral vision is usually enough to protect us from these kinds of accidents. Children don't share this awareness, and don't recognize an airplane cabin as the potentially dangerous place that it is. I don't think it is appropriate to expect other passengers to watch out for children that are not in their own custody -- that's the job of their parents/guardians. I'm not suggesting in any way that the OP was responsible for the little boy's injuries -- obviously, she was not. However, I don't think all the blame should be placed on the woman who removed her bag from the overhead.
You are correct in both statements. However, in situations such as these, people make a conscious, human choice. Situation: You open the overhead bin and, in doing so, a heavy bag drops and splits a child's head open. Choice A: You acknowledge that the incident happened and offer an apology. Choice B: You pretend it never happened and walk away without saying anything.
While there is no legal obligation to go with Choice A, it's certainly the
right thing to do and many situations can be avoided just by doing the right thing. The woman in question was lucky that JS was not the type of person who would have followed her off the plane and beat the s**t out of her for basically saying "I've hurt your child. Oh well. Get over it. Bye!" For WHATEVER reason, as an adult, you do not cause injury to a child and just walk away like nothing happened.