Should licences of people suffering from Epilepsy be cancelled?

EPILEPTICS should have their driver's licences suspended after they suffer a seizure, a coroner said yesterday following an inquest into the death of a toddler.Jet Rowland was 22 months old when he was killed in a car crash on the Logan Motorway on Brisbane's southern outskirts on February 28 last year.

Deputy Queensland Coroner Christine Clements found that Ian McLeod, a chef who had suffered epilepsy since he was three, was having an epileptic seizure when his car veered across a median strip and ran into a four-wheel-drive vehicle driven by Jet's mother, Anita Rowland.

Jet was thrown from the vehicle and suffered multiple injuries. He died that night in hospital.
His seven-year-old brother Bailey was rendered paraplegic, while his mother suffered serious burns, internal injuries and fractures to both ankles, her left leg and her left knee. Her right knee needed reconstruction.

Mr McLeod told the inquest his last memory before the accident was of paying a toll at a booth several minutes earlier.

A motorist who saw Mr McLeod just before the accident said he was sitting rigid at the steering wheel, staring into space as his car careered across the median strip.

The inquest was told Mr McLeod was admitted to hospital after a chronic epileptic seizure about 2 1/2 months before the accident.

Ms Clements called for legislation "to spell out emphatically that when a person suffers a seizure, a driver's licence is automatically cancelled" until a doctor declares they are fit to drive again.
During the inquest, counsel for the Rowland family submitted that the coroner should have a reasonable suspicion that Mr McLeod had committed the offence of reckless driving causing the death of Jet and grievous bodily harm to Bailey and Ms Rowland.

But Ms Clements made no such ruling and declined to say whether she would refer her findings to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

She said, however, that she was obliged "to consider the information available and must give that information to the (DPP) if a reasonable suspicion is held that an indictable offence has occurred".
Outside court, a tearful Ms Rowland said she was disappointed Ms Clements had not referred the case to the DPP.

"Our beautiful son Jet was 22 months old. His life had only just begun and it was stolen from him and it was stolen from us," she said.

"Bailey was seven years old. He spent three months in hospital with horrific injuries and through no fault of his own has been sentenced to life in a wheelchair."