Melbourne school and travel company fined $300k over student’s death

Total fines of $290,000 have been charged against a travel company and a school after a 16-year-old boy suffered fatal diabetes complications during a school trip to Vietnam in 2019.

A 2019 tragedy has led to both Kilvington Grammar School and World Challenge Expeditions being sentenced in the Melbourne County Court after pleading guilty to the charge of failing to ensure people other than employees were not exposed to health and safety risks.

On a trip to Vietnam, Lachlan – who had type 1 diabetes – started to show symptoms of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) around two weeks into the trip. Over several days, the student vomited a number of times, was extremely thirsty, had abdominal pain, fast breath, and low energy.

Despite being aware of Lachlan’s diabetes, the supervisors on the trip, who were two teachers and one expedition leader from World Challenge, had zero knowledge or training to recognise the warning signs of his symptoms. The leader contacted the World Challenge operations centre for advice, yet failed to disclose his diabetes – delaying a critical response.

Rapidly, Lachlan’s condition worsened; with his blood sugar level extremely high, he shortly became unresponsive. He was rushed to a local hospital, where he stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest. Although he was resuscitated, he remained in a coma.

Lachlan was transferred to the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, where he was declared brain dead. An autopsy revealed that Lachlan’s death was, in fact, DKA, which can be treated when identified early.

WorkSafe found that: “Kilvington Grammar had diabetes management and action plans for Lachlan, which provided appropriate guidance on hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar) and hyperglycaemia (high blood sugar); however, they were not taken on the trip.

“It was reasonably practicable for Kilvington Grammar to have reduced the risk of illness and death by providing at least one of the teachers on the trip with additional training and instruction for type 1 diabetes; and requiring the teachers to take Lachlan’s diabetes management and action plans with them to Vietnam.”

“An inquest into Lachlan’s death heard that having the plans on hand would have led to an earlier diagnosis of DKA.”

The investigation also found that World Challenge did not provide any specific advice or additional training to assist the on-hand leader.

The court heard that the expedition leader was advised in her training that disclosing pre-existing medical conditions when contacting the World Challenge operations centre was unnecessary.

WorkSafe found that it was reasonably practicable for World Challenge to both instruct the expedition leader on type 1 diabetes and to also train her to disclose pre-existing medical conditions when contacting its operations centre for a medical incident.

“Working with children – especially children with health conditions – comes with extremely serious responsibilities,” said WorkSafe executive director of Health and Safety Sam Jenkin.

“Frustratingly, both the school and the trip provider knew Lachlan was diabetic and yet didn’t take steps to reduce the risk of illness or death by properly supporting their staff in identifying potentially serious health complications.”