What happened?
Our client, Paul* was travelling as a front seat passenger in a company car driven by his then partner. As they went round a bend, the driver lost control, the car left the road, flipped over and collided with trees before it came to a standstill.
Paul was trapped in the car until he was rescued by the emergency services.
He suffered multiple injuries including rib fractures, a collapsed lung, fractures to both of his legs as well as serious whiplash to his neck. Understandably, after such a traumatic event, he also suffered psychological injuries.
Both of his thigh bones were pinned in surgery, and he stayed in hospital for some 12 days before he was discharged with a long road to recovery ahead of him.
Being discharged from hospital did not mark the end of Paul’s problems. In fact, his leg injuries were the ones to cause him the most issues as his reduced mobility significantly affected his work. He worked as a window cleaner, running his own business at the time. The business had already been hit by the Covid restrictions and the accident was another blow. His mobility was initially extremely limited as he started off wheelchair-bound before he was able to progress to crutches. He was off work for about 7 months and then had to adjust his working methods as he was not able to return to ladder work. He relied on his workers to help keep the business going.
How we helped?
Unfortunately, Paul’s recovery was slow and he struggled with work as well as looking after his son who had come to live with him. The pain in his right hip never resolved. One of the things Julia Prior, his Personal Injury solicitor, did after investigating the claim was to arrange for Paul to have several appointments with a private Orthopaedic surgeon to try to resolve his pain. The surgeon tried injections but they did not help, leaving removal of the metalwork in his leg as the only remaining option. The Orthopaedic surgeon expected that doing so would be successful and that Paul would be able to fully return to work afterwards.
Normally, at this stage of a claim the next step would be to obtain an interim payment to enable Paul to have the surgery and then review how successful it had been before settling it. However, Paul decided that he would prefer to settle his claim before having the surgery. Julia negotiated a settlement for him that would cover the costs of the operation as well as his loss of earnings, and that would enable him to have the surgery carried out at a time which would be convenient to him and his business.
After Paul’s settlement offer was accepted, he commented – “I just wanted to touch base to say how much I appreciate everything that you have done for me over the last few years. I was a little lost for words last week when you let me know that this is all coming to a close. Thank you again for everything you have done.”
Specialist road traffic accident solicitors
Our specialist team help people involved in serious injury collisions that were not their fault to move forward with their lives. Find out more information at Road Traffic Accidents or use our contact form below to speak with someone today.
*Please note: We have changed our client’s name to protect his privacy.
