Y'know, as much as I am bothered by the lack of mental health care access in this country, and as seriously as I take PTSD, my sympathy is really with the airline.
I have to agree. Odds are any problems her 4 year old is having is caused more by her mother's/family's reaction to the incident than the incident itself. If Momma just rolled with the incident, her kid wouldn't pick up that the incident was as scary/dangerous as it was. Is PTSD treatment standard after a car accident? This was less traumatizing than many car accidents. It was over fairly quickly, nobody got hurt, the kid didn't see any bodies/serious injuries, etc... A bumpy landing, a bit of cold, a ride in the boat with all sorts of people asking if she's alright and giving her blankets and things. In my experience young kids tend to bounce back really well, especially if the incident is brief. Now if Momma continues to pull her hair out over it, then the kids can pick up on THAT and get problems that way.
At some point I'd start looking towards the individual's medical insurance, homeowner's policy in regards to claims due to injuries/loss of property due to animal action.
And yeah, seriously, even just the 5k the woman got for herself will cover about 75 visits with a social worker or counselor, and 28 or so with psychiatrist. Psychologist is somewhere in the middle. That is generally way more than enough to help someone get the tools needed to cope with the aftermath of one brief trauma like this.
I'll note that it's care to prevent PTSD, not to treat actual PTSD. Is that even a recognized treatment? I haven't heard of the military starting to do this, even though they examine people coming back pretty carefully to see if they ahve PTSD.
Personally, I think that $5k for a non-signficant injury crash landing with goods lost is perfectly fair, along with picking up the post-disaster checkup/blankets/O2/EMT services, which can be suprisingly expensive.
Has "act of God" been defined by insurance companies or the courts? Has it been tested in court by atheists?
I'm pretty atheistic, and I generally just define AoG as 'unpredictable unforseen occurance'. Deer jumping in front of your vehicle, meteor, lightning strike, etc... Some of those you can partially compensate for, indeed airlines and airports do a lot to try to prevent bird strikes.
He was applying the "least cost avoider" reasoning to a situation which could not be avoided. He then suggested that we should harm the airlines because it would give them "added incentive to find ways to mitigate the damages."
Look at it a different way. Who's in the position to make sure a plane doesn't get hit by birds? The passangers or the owner of the plane? I'd tend to say the owner of the plane.
Sure, the risk can't be avoided 100%, but it can be mitigated. Many airports have dedicated teams today, even conduct extensive landscaping operations to keep birds away from the runways, especially when planes are using it.
He claims the passengers couldn't avoid the losses (unable to "do anything about it", which is untrue- they did not have to fly).
Still, I don't want even people who were on the flight to get the idea that they're now on the gravy train. Insurance should make them whole, not be like winning the lottery.
Especially when the airline isn't really at fault this time.