Industry news roundup: week ended 15 Oct 2012:
This week, two personal injury compensation awards were made for a total of more than £75,000 due to a personal injury at work and a medical negligence claim.
First up, one Sunderland car seat factory employee walked away with a massive compensation award of £60,000 for her repetitive strain injury after her employers sett;ed the matter out of court. Angela McGuckin, fifty years of age, had been working as a production operative for Tacle Seating at their Houghton plant over the course of the development of her injury.
The diminutive Mrs McGuckin, just 5ft 2in tall, had been working at a high table using an air gun to staple fabric to foam starting in 2007, requiring her to raise her elbow high above her head over and over again in order to perform her task. However, after performing these tasks, she soon noticed that her shoulder and elbow were causing her pain, but it took more than a year after both Mrs McGuckin’s repeated complaints and the recommendation of the company doctor before the table was actually lowered.
By that point, the damage had been done, necessitating Mrs McGuckin to take time off work to have her injury treated through surgery. The woman missed three months of work as a result, but has since been compensated for her injury thanks to the massive £60,000 payout.
Next up, we have one woman from Lincolnshire who had to suffer through a botched wisdom teeth removal that left her with numbness in her face. Christina Knights, thirty nine years old, had thought she was going in for a routine surgical procedure at Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital in Grimsby, but she was left with numbness in her lower lip and chin after two nerves in her lower jaw were severed by accident.
The woman has since developed severe issues due to the lack of feeling, including difficulties speaking and eating. Ms Knights has also said that her bottom lip will turn completely blue in cold weather as well – information hat contributed to her successful personal injury claims against the NHS Trust for Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals, which settled her claim out of court for a sum of £15,250.