Nightclub ropes off area around injured teenager – and lets everyone else carry on dancing

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When Amelia Bardell slipped and dislocated her ankle on a nightclub dance floor, she hoped staff would help. They did. They roped her off and let everyone else carrying on partying around her.

The 18-year-old was left unable to move after popping her joint at Zinc in the Warwickshire town of Rugby.

So, while they waited for an ambulance, club managers decided to simply throw a cordon around her and let other revellers continue using the rest of the dance floor. For almost three hours.

"There was a lot of people crowding around me,” she told the Coventry Telegraph. “I was getting pointed at, people were laughing, trying to take pictures of me.

"The club put like a rope barrier around me, but I don't think it was big enough because I still ended up getting my leg, the bad leg, kicked and nudged a few times.”

The incident happened a little after midnight on Sunday morning and the club finally shut at 3am. An ambulance turned up around 5am.

"So many people around me were just laughing at me, like it was funny,” added Ms Bardell. “It was so, so embarrassing.

"I've never felt anything quite like it, just because I knew it wasn't my fault that I'd hurt myself. It just happened. So I didn't feel like I deserve to feel like that."

In a statement, Zinc defended its actions and said staff had been assigned to stay with the teenager until the ambulance arrived.

A spokesperson said: "The wellbeing of our guests is our top priority. We administered first aid and called an ambulance for a girl who had injured herself on our dancefloor.

"Two members of our team stayed with her and roped off the area around her to keep her safe, while she waited for the ambulance to arrive.”

Ms Bardell was transferred to the University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire from where she has since been discharged.