To quote (roughly, I think) from the Saw films, the human body is a miraculous creation, and can take a great deal of punishment. If you’ve seen the films, you’ll know what I mean…
But Hollywood aside, the news that an injury you have sustained is going to leave you with a permanent problem can be devastating to hear. For reasons unknown, certain injuries just don’t heal very well, or at all. The obvious ones like amputation or the loss of an organ or similar can obviously leave you with a permanent disadvantage. But there are other things, like permanent muscular weakness or nerve damage that equally leave you with long term and potentially indefinite problems.
Commonly, bone on bone heals well, but for reasons unknown, a ruptured ligament or damaged nerve either needs reconstructing or has little or no chance of recovering. So how do we take this in to account when it comes to valuing a claim for personal injury compensation that leaves you permanently injured? How can we put a value on something that changes your life for the worse forever? It’s not easy; but as specialist injury lawyers, we do it all the time.
There’s an amount for the injury itself that is designed to reflect the seriousness of the impairment. You can also claim for psychological injuries if the fact that your life has changed for the worse has had an effect on you mentally. This is very common – don’t feel like a fool if you get sad or depressed about how you have been changed due to an injury. This is a perfectly natural and normal human response to such a thing; and we take it seriously when we take it in to account for a claim.
But the main thing we need to look at is how much this is going to cost you in the long run. We need to look at the following common areas:
- Any specialist assistance or medical equipment you need and the costs associated with this – like ankle braces for foot drop.
- The disadvantage the injury causes you in the open labour market – i.e. what can you no longer do as a result of the injury.
- Whether you can work at all, or will face future medical complications which means more time off work in the future that needs to be accounted for. A common example is arthritis in the knee or hip joint due to earlier injuries. If so we need to take in to account future lost earnings.
- If you need treatment in the future, you should be entitled to private treatment, so the costs of this need to be considered.
- Whether your hobbies will be affected.
I know that we cannot take away what has happened to you. For most, it gets easier in time. I know, I have a permanent condition myself called foot drop which was caused due to a serious knee injury playing football. As it was done in sport, I sadly can’t make a claim! But for those of you who have suffered a serious injury and someone else is at fault, we can help – we can make a claim for personal injury compensation and we can take in to account your future needs to make sure you get a settlement that reflects what has happened to you.
Call our expert claims helpline on 0800 634 75 75 today for the specialist advice you need.
