One teacher who was paralysed whilst welly wanging is currently pursuing £5 million in personal injury compensation, it was recently reported.
Glennroy Blair-Ford, a forty five year old native of Bromley, in South London, had been at Devon adventure centre with a group of pupils on an activity holiday when the incident that left him paralysed from the neck down occurred, according to his accident claim. Mr Blair-Ford, who had been asked to participate in a welly wanging competition – a contest to throw a Wellington boot as far as you can – when he fell and sustained catastrophic injury.
The former head of technology and design had been tossing the boot backwards from in between his legs in order to handicap his performance against that of his pupils, but Mr Blair-Ford instead fell forward head-first as he was taking his turn, sustaining a broken neck that left him permanently paralysed and completely dependent on full time care as well as ventilator support in order to allow him to breathe for as many as twenty three hours out of the day.
The catastrophically injured man has launched a personal injury claim against CRS Adventures Ltd, the owners of the adventure centre. Mr Blair-Ford’s personal injury solicitors claim that CRS Adventures neglected to warn the injured man about the potential risks involved in welly wanging, with the £5 million compensation figure necessary to fund the support and care the paralysed man will need in order to live.
The Devon-based firm has denied any and all liability for the incident, based on the grounds that any potential risk of such serious injury could not possibly have been foreseen.