Turns out not everyone loves bacon after all

Industry news roundup: week ended 7 Jan 2013:

While bacon is one of those wonderful foods that nearly everyone enjoys eating, it was revealed this week that one man has reason to dislike the foodstuff.

Orbital Foods Ltd worker Rui Sousa suffered massive crush injuries to his arm in a personal injury at work after it was caught in a bacon press machine at Orbital’s Chapel Pond Hill location in an incident that occurred in March of 2012. The engineer had been working to recondition the machine when the accident happened, but unbeknownst to him the press’ safety feature had been overridden, and the machine’s power and air supply were still connected as Mr Sousa undertook his work, only to have the press suddenly start up, crushing his arm in the process.

The poor man will mos likely never be able to think of bacon the same way again after suffering such severe injury, all because someone had either meddled with the machine or had not realised that the safety feature of the press was no longer working as it was supposed to. Unfortunately for Mr Sousa’s employer, the Health and Safety Executive got wind of the incident, launching an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the engineer’s injuries and discovering that not only had there been no safe system of work put in place by Orbital Foods but that there had not been any risk assessments carried out regarding the use or maintenance of the bacon press that flattened Mr Sousa’s arm – and left him with most likely a lifelong aversion to bacon as well.

The HSE proseuted Orbital Foods to the hilt for violating health and safety violations. The company folded under the watchdog’s onslaught, entering a guilty plea at Magistrates’ Court recently and walking away with more than £10,000 in fines and court costs combined; bad luck for Orbital Foods but not unexpected.

There’s no word on whether Mr Sousa will be seeking personal injury compensation for his injuries, but it can only be assumed that such a lawsuit may already be underway. Hopefully the injured engineer’s personal injury lawyers will secure a sizable damages award for him.

Hospital patient wins big on medical negligence claim

Industry news roundup: week ended 31 Dec 2012:

While it won’t bring back the leg he lost while under bungled medical care, one hospital patient recently received a large personal injury compensation payment.

Russell Hession, a fifty three year old native of Ongar, in Essex, had been suffering from severe pains in his extremities, which prompted him to visit the Princess Alexandra Hospital to seek treatment. Mr Hession appeared with a letter in hand – written by his GP no less – detailing how he had been given treatment for a blood clot within his lung several years ago and that blood clots ran in his family, yet hospital staff found nothing of the sort and sent him home.

However, Mr Hession soon began to experience even worse and more excruciating pains in his arms and legs, forcing him to return to hospital where he was given an ultrasound examination, this time to search of any evidence of deep vein thrombosis. Again there was nothing amiss according to the medical professionals, and on a third hospital visit – which had Mr Hession nearly incapacitated from pain, he was informed that he should take two paracetamol tablets for the ‘torn muscle’ he was suffering from.

Of course, it turns out that the poor man did indeed have a terrible blood clot, and his GP was the one who discovered it after being unable to find the man’s pulse in his right leg. Mr Hession’s blood flow in that leg had been reduced by so much and for so long that the only option left was amputation.

That was quite enough, as far as Mr Hession was concerned, and he launched a medical negligence compensation against the NHS Trust for the hospital on the grounds that he would still be walking about on two legs if hospital staff weren’t so incompetent. After the hospital made an admission of liability for his lost leg, Mr Hession was awarded a compensation award for £500,000 – cold comfort for a missing leg, but at least the parties responsible have had to pay for their mistakes!

Cyclist sues for injuries caused in accident with police car

Industry news roundup: week ended 17 Dec 2012:

This week it was revealed that a cyclist that suffered life-changing injuries after a road traffic accident with a police car will bring a compensation claim.

Donald MacLeod, a sixty two year old former journalist, had been cycling about through London when the vehicle in question, a police car on its way to respond to an emergency call elsewhere, struck him with enough force to send him quite literally flying through the air, according to eyewitness accounts. Mr MacLeod sustained massive injuries as a result from his impromptu flight across the road to the point where it was six long weeks before he emerged from his coma only to be left with such devastating injuries that he has difficulties speaking, moving, and caring for himself.

The poor man now needs 24 hour a day constant care around the clock in order to function on any level whatsoever, and due to the massive costs involved in providing Mr MacLeod’s care, he and his family have made a personal injury compensation claim for negligence against the Metropolitan Police Force. With the £30,000 raised by Mr MaLeod’s colleagues and friends merely a drop in the bucket compared to what he will need to pay for care in the long term, the injured man’s personal injury solicitors are asking for more than £1 million in compensation.

So far there has been no word on how the police will react to the lawsuit and whether they will seek to reach an out of court settlement or if they will defend the claim in court. However, eyewitness accounts do report that Mr MacLeod had not only been wearing a helmet at the time of the incident – a precautionary measure that may have very well preserved his life – but also a high visibility vest, meaning that the police may have little in the way of an excuse if they failed to see the cyclist on their way to respond to an emergency that day.

Pub landlady seeking nearly £1 million after fall from height

Industry news roundup: week ended 10 Dec 2012:

It’s a bad day for one pub landlady this week after she had to make a personal injury claim after a nasty from a fall from height from an attic ladder.

Mira Bateman, the fifty seven year old publican and tenant of the Plowden Arms, located near Henley-on-Thames, when fell from the ladder after its retaining bolt gave way, falling to the ground, knocking out one of her teeth, fracturing her jaw, injuring her spine and neck, and knocking herself unconscious. The initial incident, which occurred two years ago, Mrs Bateman still suffers from back pain originating from spinal nerve damage, according to an MRI scan that revealed the debilitating and serious damage.

However, this week the former landlady has made a personal injury claim against W.H. Breakspear & Sons, the owner of the Oxfordshire brewery, for £975,000. Mrs Bateman claims that the brewery had a duty to provide proper and safe access to the attic area of the pub, though the brewery has been adamant that they are not responsible for the incident, and have since remarked that Mrs Bateman should have made her personal injury compensation claim much sooner than she had.

Now, the matter rests in a judge from the High Court of London, which will decide if the former landlady will be permitted to pursue her claim against the brewery.  Regardless of whether Mrs Bateman will be barred from pursuing her claim due to the amount of time elapsed between the initial injury and now, falls from height can and routinely are the cause of incredibly painful and serious injuries.

The ironic part of the entire situation is that the landlady had been attempting to put away Christmas decorations after the end of the festive season two years ago when the unfortunate incident occurred. It would be a shame if the injured woman was denied the ability to pursue her claim as Christmas is a scant fortnight away, though the law has little in the way of sentiment in situations like this.

Major incident at work leads to fine for Kent firm

Weekly news recap: 7 days ending 3 Dec 2012

A serious hand injury suffered on the job by one employee has led to his Kent-based employer to face serious fines from the Health and Safety Executive.

This week, the big news was how BMM Weston Ltd ran into serious fines as a result of an HSE investigation following a grisly personal injury at work that involved an unguarded circular saw. Kent factory worker Graham Beal, from Faversham, suffered a nasty wound to his hand as he was attempting to use the saw to cut a solid steel piece in order to shape it for a metal trolley handle. Mr Beale had been using the metal cutting saw to cut the steel into the proper shapes, but had to hold the bit of metal in place by hand as the saw’s clamping system was not working properly.

The worker sustained severed tendons and some quite serious lacerations to his hand when it came in contact with the saw blade due because of the malfunctioning clamping system, sending him to hospital and causing the HSE to send a pack of inspectors out to investigate the cause of the industrial accident. The HSE’s investigation discovered bad news for Mr Beal’s employer, as the circular saw was found to be in such an unsuitable condition that it was declared generally unsafe due to poor maintenance – and that wasn’t the only piece of manufacturing equipment at the factory that was found to be similarly in disrepair.

The HSE prosecuted BMM Weston Ltd – as it usually does after finding some rather egregious health and safety violations at a worksite – and the manufacturing firm gave up the ghost, admitting to breaching work equipment regulations not once but twice. The Weston Works, Faversham-based company was told to pay a fine of £2,400 for their breaches and has since ensured that the clamping mechanism on the saw is now working properly and that the saw itself has been suitably fitted with guarding as well.

There is yet to be any indication regarding whether Mr Beal will be making a personal injury compensation claim against his employer.

Are hospitals the least safe spots in the UK?

Weekly news recap: 7 days ending 26 Nov 2012

Whether you’re a patient or an employee, hospitals seem to be one of the least safe places to be in the country according to this week’s latest news stories.

First comes the story of how a seventy two year old pensioner won his legal battle for personal injury compensation for the loss of nearly all his vision in one of his eyes in the wake of a raft of hospital errors. The injured man, Malcolm Spencer, had been suffering from distorted vision prior to the incident, and while he was referred to the Fairfield General Hospital, located in Bury, medical staff there neglected to discern that Mr Spencer had been suffering from age-related macular degeneration,  which was responsible for the distortion.

Hospital staff sent Mr Spencer for laser eye treatment, which invariably made his vision even worse than it was. This prompted the injured man to make a medical negligence claim against the NHS Trust responsible for managing the Fairfield, and with the hospital admitting they had made mistakes that cost Mr Spencer nearly all his remaining vision in that one eye, agreement has recently been reached to compensate the man for his damages.

Meanwhile, a nursing auxiliary at the Belford Hospital was also awarded compensation after a personal injury at work to the tune of £50,000, thanks to a wrenched back and shoulder. Linda Mitchell, fifty nine years old, had been working at the Belford’s Belhaven Ward when she was attempting to arrange heavy lined curtains around the bed of a patient, leaning over a TV table.

However, the auxiliary ended up wrenching her shoulder and back after the curtains became jammed. Ms Mitchell was injured so severely that she has not been able to resume her duties since 2008, which is when the incident originally occurred.

Ms Mitchell finally received compensation payment recently after a long, protracted battle with the NHS, which first saw the claimant only being offered £25,000 for her injuries. However, the auxiliary stuck to her guns, resulting in her earning double the initial amount after a civil action; while Ms Mitchell expressed happiness that a settlement had been reached, she was quick to add that the the entire incident could have been completely avoided if hospital bosses had heeded initial complaints about the jammed curtain.

Losing injury claims can be an expensive proposition

Industry news roundup: week ended 19 Nov 2012:

Defending a losing injury claim can be an expensive proposition, as it was revealed this week that costs to insurers and local authorities are very high indeed.

First up is the story of a mother from Wigan racking up a personal injury compensation payment of £90,000 after she was hit by a car. Lisa Eagleton, a thirty eight year old mum from Worsley Mesnes, had been on her way to visit a friend when she was hit by a vehicle as she attempted to cross Darlington Street.

Ms Eagleton sutained a broken nose, a broken leg, and quite serious facial bruising, and was treated at the Wigan Infirmary for her injuries. However, the damage done to her leg was much worse than first anticipated, and while surgical staff laboured to save the limb after it had been infected, ultimately Ms Eagleton had to have her leg amputated.

The accident claim made by Ms Eagleton was disputed by the insurers of the driver who struck her on the grounds that she was responsible for the injuries after stepping into the path of the car. However, something must have put the fear of God in the insurers, as just a week prior to trial Ms Eagleton received a 50 per cent liability offer, earning the woman the £90,000 compensation payout.

However, one local authority in the East Midlands is even worse off, after reports emerged this week that Norfolk County Council has had to pay out in excess of £11 million thanks to the poor condition of the county’s footpaths and roads. From 2005 through 2011, there were 6,273 accident claims made against the council, according to a recent article in the Norwich Evening News, with the local authority being blamed for a wide range of damage, from pedestrians tripping over pavement cracks to cars suffering damage after hitting potholes.

1,720 of these claims were successful. This led to the massive compensation payments, the largest of which was the £63,000 paid to an individual in Great Yarmouth after they tripped on a cracked footpath and sustained fractures to their ribs.

Bad burns for one Essex man at Chelmsford engineering plant

Industry news roundup: week ended 12 Nov 2012:

This week, a rather gruesome injury made the news when a man from Essex suffered quite bad burns whilst on the job at a Chelmsford engineering plant.

The unnamed man, a thirty nine year old worker for Infinite Engineering Ltd, came into close contact with caustic soda – a substance also known as solidified sodium hydroxide – as he was tasked with cleaning out a tank of the substance. The man had been standing in the tank in order to chip away at the crystallised material within the tank when he suffered chemical burns to his face after having to lift his safety mask from his face after it misted up, obscuring his vision.

Crystals of the caustic soda alighted on the man’s face, burning both the inside of his tear duct and his eyelid. Fortunately for him, he managed to avoid getting the crystals in his eyes, as that could have led to permanent damage for his vision otherwise his vision.

The incident was investigated by the Health and Safety Executive shortly after it occurred, with HSE inspectors concluding that the man’s employer should have done more to protect the worker from sustaining damage from caustic soda crystals. The HSE prosecuted the London-based Inflite Engineering Ltd, which operates from Stansted airport, resulting in a massive fine of £17,000 and court costs of £3,246 after Inflite admitted breaching health and safety regulations.

In an interview given in the wake of the court hearing, one inspector for the HSE remarked that Inflite had neglected to adequately carry out risk assessments of what it involved to clean the tank of caustic soda in a safe manner. Not only was the injured man placed in jeopardy of receiving chemical burns, pointed out the HSE inspector, but the danger of falling from the task was not accounted for as well, though luckily the employee’s injuries were relatively minor in comparison to the debilitating injuries he could have sustained.

Medical negligence leads to £37.5k in compensation

Industry news roundup: week ended 5 Nov 2012:

This week, news broke that the NHS has been made to pay for the mistakes of medical staff, awarding £37,500 in compensation following a botched surgery.

Errors that occurred during the surgery of one artist from Leicestershire to treat breast cancer racked up a massive personal injury compensation bill for the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust after a surgeon severed several nerves located in the patient’s shoulder, nearly crippling her left arm completely. Margaret Gold, a seventy year old resident of Cosby, now has to cope with an inability use her hand, wrist, and arm thanks to medical ‘professionals’ that botched her surgery at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, changing her life drastically.

The published illustrator and artist, who also worked as an art therapist prior to her surgery, has lost all feeling in her fingers and can no longer raise her wrist following what should have been a routine surgery. Mrs Gold has not set brush to canvas even once after her nerves were accidentally severed.

The 70 year old woman launched a medical negligence claim against the NHS Trust for the hospital, resulting with a personal injury compensation award of £37,500, though it’s cold comfort for a woman who made her living for decades as an artist. One of Mrs Gold’s personal injury solicitors remarked that the care received by the injured woman was far below the standard of care that would have been expected, and that if there had not been a delay in remedial treatment the damage might have been repaired by subsequent surgeries, possibly restoring some measure of movement and feeling to Mrs Gold’s hand and arm.

An NHS Trust spokesman made a full, unreserved apology to the injured artist, stating that since the incident, the hospital has instituted changes in order to ensure such other unfortunate incidents would not occur in the future. However, no amount of compensation will make Mrs Gold whole, who now must live the rest of her life without being able to create art as she did before – doubtless she would trade every last penny of that compensation award to be restored to full health.

Blind man seeks compensation after Tasered by police

Industry news roundup: week ended 29 Oct 2012:

News broke this week how one poor man has decided to seek personal injury compensation after being Tasered by police in a case of mistaken identity.

Colin Farmer, a sixty two year old man from Chorley who is legally registered as only partially sighted and blind after suffering two strokes, was Tasered from behind with a debilitating 50,000 Volt Taser gun by a police officer after the law enforcement official thought he was, of all things, a samurai sword wielding thug. Poor Mr Farmer had been on his way down to his local pub to meet some of his mates for a few pints, using his white walking stick, when it was mistaken by Chorley police – who had been alerted to some sword wielding man in the area – for the weapon.

Mr Farmer had been moving slowly at the time due to his disability when police ordered him to stop. However, the man mis-interpreted the shouting as a street thug attempting to mug him, and in the resultant furore the police officer Tasered him in the back, causing him to collapse on the pavement face first.

Once the police realised the grave mistake they made, they rushed the blind man to Chorley Hospital for treatment. However, the injured man has since made the decision to make a personal injury claim against the police.

It has been reported that later that night the police found the actual individual they were looking for in the first place. The self-styled street samurai, a twenty seven year old male, was apprehended whilst in possession of the martial arts weapon and taken into police custody, where he will undoubtedly need to use all his samurai skills to emerge from this unscathed.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission is understood to be launching an investigation into the incident and will hopefully uncover how anyone could not only mistake a blind man’s walking stick for a two-handed sword wielded by ancient Japanese warriors, not to mention how it could be justified to Taser the same blind man from behind as he fled from the offier at the breakneck speed of of a disabled shuffle. We can only hope that Mr Farmer has the best of luck in pursuing his accident claim.

Head injuries all around for UK workers

Industry news roundup: week ended 22 Oct 2012:

It was a bad week for UK workers, with not one but two pretty nasty incidents involving head injuries recently that left employees reeling.

First up was when one care worker from Reading was injured in a ceiling collapse. Ironically it was the ceiling of a hospital that collapsed on David Kennedy’s head as he worked to help patients in the dining room of Tilehurst’s Prospect Park Hospital.

Mr Kennedy not only sprained his right shoulder in the collapse but suffered head injuries that left him with tinnitus and other hearing problems in the incident. He launched a personal injury compensation claim against the hospital manager, Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, on the grounds that the hospital should have closed or cordoned off the dining room while maintenance workers undertook work on the ceiling.

Mr Kennedy’s personal injury solicitors, provided by his union, said that hospital managers were aware of problems with the ceiling for months before the incident that led to the man’s injuries. The claim was settled out of court after the NHS Trust admitted its liability for the incident, though the amount of Mr Kennedy’s damages award was not made public.

Another injury that made the news this week was that of Zach Martin, a twenty year old agency worker that had been undertaking work at Wyman-Gordon Ltd at their Lincoln-based metal components factory. Mr Martin was laid low when his safety visor was smashed by a grinding wheel that had broken loose at the factory, causing such injury to his head that he required 83 staples.

Mr Martin fractured his skull and sustained severe injuries to to his face, requiring a surgical procedure lasting five hours to remove a bone fragment that had been become lodged in his brain. The Health and Safety Executive had an absolute field day with the resultant investigation, discovering that the injured man had only been given perhaps five hours of rudimentary training on the apparatus and had not even been given instruction on how to change the factory’s grinding wheels properly.

The firm was given a £16,500 fine by Lincoln Magistrates’ Court at a recent hearing after it admitted to breaching health and safety regulations.

Injuries lead to tens of thousands of pounds in compensation

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.

School bullies major headache for local councils

Industry news roundup: week ended 8 Oct  2012:

The ‘bullying epidemic’ in the UK has become a major headache for the nation’s schools, costing local councils nearly £110,000 in legal fees last year alone.

Personal injury compensation payouts made to victims of school bullies throughout the course of the last school year have grown from isolated incidents to a growing trend, thanks to nearly one dozen pupils brought personal injury claims for injuries caused by other students. Lancashire Council alone had been found to pay out around £28,000 towards the final total on three separate bullying incidents alone for instances of assault, broken arms, and crushed hands alone.

It’s not just an instance of one school ‘in a rough neighbourhood,’ either, as other injuries have occurred in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, where a £7,500 compensation award was given to one pupil who sustained injuries to his shoulder an arm after he was accosted in his classroom.  A similar incident occurred in West Yorkshire was even more costly to the local authority, with Bradford Council having to pay out on a £8,300 damages award.

For every instance where bullying has been a major problem in schools in the UK to the point where a personal injury compensation claim was made, there are tens of thousands of less high-profile cases. In fact, Department of Education figures say that there were 62,460 suspensions from school for physical altercations between students, wile there were 760 cases serious enough to expel the offending pupil permanently.

The Campaign for Real Education commented on the news, with a Campaign spokesman remarking that it is clear that bullying behaviour coming from these violent children is wholly responsible for these incidents. However, the responsibility lies with adults to put an end to violence and bullying in UK schools, calling for more intervention from teachers, administrators, and – above all – parents.

Behavioural experts say that most bullies come from homes with little to no positive role models in their personal lives. Many bullies are emotionally neglected or even abused by inattentive parents, leaving the blame squarely on the shoulders of those who should have the most influence on a young child’s life yet do not do enough to set the young boy or girl on the proper path ; in fact, many bullies learn the behaviour directly from their parents, who tend to be bullies themselves in turn.

The HSE is at it again with a brace of new fines

Industry news roundup: week ended 1 Oct 2012:

It’s been work accident claims as far as the eye can see lately, with the Health & Safety Executive putting the hurt on negligent employers.

One recent news story of the HSE’s continued rampage against employers with more business sense than a sense for their employees’ safety came recently, as 25 year old farm worker who had his hand mangled by a potato crusher as he attempted to clear a blockage in 2009.

The man, whose name hasn’t been released to the public, had been working at the Sleaford-based Waterloo Farm, picking up some casual work during the potato harvest. However, due to the rocky soil of the farm the potato crusher fitted to the farm’s harvesting equipment became blocked with stones repeatedly, which resulted in farm workers having to signal the driver of the harvester stop the machine and deactivate it before reaching inside the crusher to clear the blockage.

However, the incident that led to the personal injury at work occurred when the driver missed the worker’s signal yet stopped for an unrelated reason. The worker, incorrectly believing that the driver had stopped and isolated the power to the crusher, reached inside, only to have three tendons in his right hand severed by the mechanism, resulting in the HSE investigating and then prosecuting the farmer for neglecting to set a safe work system up or undertaking a proper risk assesment – resulting in a £20,000 fine for the farmer.

Another food-related accident the following year also made it into magistrates’ court recently as well, though this one didn’t involve a mechanical mangling. Instead, one snack manufacturing company employee broke his leg when he was trapped under an avalanche of falling waste after a forklift truck to turn transport solidified production waste.

Another unnamed man, who had been working for Walkers Snack Foods Ltd at the manufacturing firm’s Lincoln plant, had been attempting to move the waste with the help of a colleague after it had been filled to the brim with production line waste run-off. The men had been moving the block of solidified waste with the forklift to place it into a bin, only to have the block come tumbling down because the fork lift became stuck at the top.

The 400kg block crushed the man’s leg, causing severe enough injury to require a 15 week recovery period where he was unable to work. The company, which had been found to have not undertaken safe planning, supervision, or execution of the work that caused the man’s injury, was fined – again for £20,000, much like the farm company.

Can no one be trusted to be honest when it comes to injuries?

Industry news roundup: week ended 24 Sept 2012:

This week, it seems like everywhere you turned there was a story about how someone, somewhere was milking personal injury compensation cases as hard as they possibly could.

New research recently revealed that over the course of 2011, more than £5 million was spent by local schools across the UK for personal injury claims made by schoolchildren – but only half of that sum actually went to injured students. The other half went straight into the pockets of personal injury solicitors, sometimes in instances that saw legal fees dwarf actual compensation payments!

The recent survey, which was carried out under a Freedom of Information request, saw that there was a serious disparity amongst payouts made to schoolchildren and the fees their lawyers walked out with. One of the most egregious cases involved a student who injured his finger after getting it trapped in a door, leading to a £3,750 compensation payout for the schoolboy, but resulted in £36,000 in court costs and legal fees paid to the solicitor firm representing the injured student. A ‘good neighbour’ who was nominated for a community award has been branded a ‘liar’ in court after making a false personal injury claim.

The avarice of personal injury lawyers is already legendary, but there’s always the occasional story that also makes you lose faith in humanity as well, such as the story that a man formerly commended by his local authority was caught red-handed in trying to wheedle some cash from the very same council by trumping up a false personal injury claim. Furhan Mustafa was caught in the lie recently by Salford council investigators, resulting in the district judge throwing out his claim for £3,000 – and ordering that he pay the £5,500 the town incurred in legal costs defending the spurious claim.

The worst part about this is that the 22 year old man had become a finalist in the Good Neighbour category for the Be Proud community awards for Manchester council. Originally nominated because of the time he spent working with vulnerable people, Mustafa was even praised in a letter to the Queen by one of the elderly neighbours he helped out.

 

The dangerous world of injuries in the workplace

Industry news roundup: week ended 17 Sept 2012:

No one ever said that working a regular job was the safest thing to do everyday, but most of the time you should be relatively safe from harm – but accidents still happen, and when they do, they tend to be quite serious!

Recent stories in the news this past week covering accidents were absolutely lousy with news of several instances of personal injury at work. In fact, two of the most high-profile stories were of those particularly gruesome variety – the kind of manufacturing accidents that nearly inevitably lead to work accident claims made by the injured employee and visits from the Health and Safety Executive made to the employer.

In fact, the injuries sustained by Steven Spencer, a thirty six year old agency worker that had been working an East Yorkshire laminating firm, raised eyebrows this week. Mr Spencer ended up getting his hand caught in a laminating machine at Excel Laminating Ltd’s manufacturing plant.

Mr Spencer was feeding paper through the rollers when his hand was dragged into the laminating machine, suffering massive damage to it that required  four day stay in hospital and two surgical procedures to repair the damage to the three fingers which were nearly severed in the incident. Worse yet is that the poor bloke had only been in his third week of work for Excel Laminating!

The HSE was all over the incident, sending inspectors out to the plant and discovering that there were inadequate safety guards on the laminating machine. This led to a £2,000 fine for Excel Laminating after the HSE dragged the company into Hull Magistrates’ Court, though Excel did have the good sense to at least admitting to breaching Health and Safety regulations.

£2,000 is a pretty weighty fine, but it’s nothing compared to the £14,000 in fines another company had to pay after a rather gruesome incident involving one of their employees suffering massive crush injuries from a lorry’s tail lift. The injuries occurred at Don-Bur Bodies & Trailers Ltd’s Stoke-on-Trent manufacturing plant, where a technician was attempting to fit a tuck-way tail lift to a lorry that had been incorrectly wired, resulting in the lift’s accidental activation, crushing Mark Dimmock, the twenty eight year old employee, who had been under the lorry at the time.

Even worse than Mr Spencer, this poor unfortunate soul had only been with his new employer for barely a week at the time of the accident. His injuries were absolutely massive – as can be imagined – and the HSE went after Don-Bur in a big way.

More work accident claims this week as HSE prosecutes 2 firms

Industry news roundup: week ended 10th Sept 2012:

It’s been another bad week for both manufacturing workers and their employers, as two instances of personal injury at work bring massive fines and legal fees to bear on two different companies.

First up, we have a thirty six year old man who lost three of his fingers in an accident involving a forklift truck and a sheet of metal. The man, whose name has not been made known to the press, had been employed by Lancashire engineering firm PRF Engineering, working on manufacturing bicycles and supermarket trolley shelters, at the time of the incident.

The Health and Safety Executive investigated the incident, discovering that the man lost his fingers because of the unsafe methods used by his employers in regards to how the metal sheet was being transported. The HSE took PRF Engineering to Ormskirk Magistrates’ Court for health and safety violations, describing to the court how the injured man was told to place the three metre wide metal sheet down across the forks of the forklift truck and then to stand upon one of the forks while a colleage stood on the other one, balancing it precariously, only to lose the fingers when they slipped within the forklift mechanism as the sheet was being lowered into place.

Lucky for the worker, hospital staff were able to re-attach the missing digits, though it will be some time until he has completely healed. Unfortunately for PRF Engineering, the Skelmersdale-based manufacturer admitted to breaching health and safety violations, earning a £6,000 fine – and more than £5,000 in legal fees as well!

Sometimes you don’t need a piece of incredibly expensive equipment to hurt yourself at work. While crush injuries are quite common, falls from height are doubly so as experienced by Mark Lambton, a fifty year old roof maintenance worker who took a nearly seven metre tumble from the roof of a Darlington domestic residence and suffering life-changing injuries as a result.

J Wilson Home Improvements, a local contractor, had hired Mr Lambton to aid in carrying out roof maintenance to the property to clear the roof of debris. However, the man fell when attempting to scale the gable end of the house by using a set of ladders that had been placed there for that purpose; instead he fell and injured himself so severely that he may have suffered enough brain damage to leave him in a permanent vegetative state.

The HSE went positively wild upon discovering the incident, investigating the accident site and discovering that the work was not being carried out safely and that there had been no safety harness or guarding fitted to prevent falls from the roof. J Wilson Home Improvements’ eponymous owner, James Wilson, was slapped with a £12,000 fine by the local Magistrates’ court after the HSE prosecuted him, throwing in an additional £3,000 in court costs and legal fees for good measure.

HSE out in force this week after spate of work accidents

Industry news roundup: week ended 3rd September 2012:

It seems like it’s been a bad week for firms, with all too many businesses being dragged before the magistrate to settle matters with the Health and Safety Executive after employees suffering personal injury at work.

Most companies both loathe and fear a visit from HSE inspectors, and for good reason – they never seem to show up when things have been going smoothly. This week has been no different, with workers from Nottingham and Hampshire ending up injured, prompting HSE investigations that ultimately led to fines for their employers.

First up we have an unfortunate 49 year old worker that suffered serious injuries to his back and neck after he fell off a roof whilst on the job. The man had been working for Morrison Facilities Service Ltd, a home maintenance company at the time, when he put his hand right through the roof he was working on, plummeting to a concrete floor below – head-first!

The poor man was in hospital for a period of ten days, but his suffering lasted for the next three months, as he couldn’t move about without the aid of a neck and body brace. The HSE prosecuted Morrison Facilities Service for health and safety breaches, resulting in a whopping £18,000 fine – and an extra £5,452 in court costs to boot – all for not taking out a proper risk assessment before undertaking on the roof.

The other worker whose work accident claim made the news last week was a factory worker from Southampton, Nikoloz Demetrashvili, who ended up with his leg trapped within a brick making machine at Michel,ersh Brick and Tile Company Ltd’s Hampshire-based factory. The forty two year old man had just been doing his job by trying  to clear a blockage on one of the brick making machines at the factory, only to trip a sensor on the machine, sending it springing into action and pinning his leg within its workings.

The factory worker faced a three week stay in hospital for his injuries, which included not just crush damage to his trapped leg but multiple fractures as well. There’d be a joke here about ‘sticking your leg in it’ if the man didn’t have to suffer so badly the painful, humiliating injury, but the HSE stepped in and promptly slapped the brick maker with a notice to improve the machine’s safety measures.

The firm complied by making access to the machine’s inner workings impossible without deactivating the leg-breaking apparatus completely. Of course, doing so is a bit like closing the barn door after the horses have already escaped, so the HSE also dragged Michelmersh into court, with the results being nearly £20,000 in fines and court costs combined.

Police forces injure, are injured in turn

Industry news roundup: week ended 27th August 2012:

It seems like it just doesn’t pay to be a copper today, considering how if you’re not causing road traffic accidents, you’re ending up costing your local authority thousands in personal injury compensation awards for work accident claims.

Maybe it’s just our perception, but it seems like you couldn’t swing a cat without encountering a news story regarding the police as either being involved in some sort of RTA where a citizen ends up rather injured or police officers ending up suffering personal injury at work themselves. We know that it’s a tough, sometimes dangerous line of work – and we’re grateful for everything those boys in blue due to keep us safe – but sometimes it’s as if they’re their own worst enemies!

Last week saw a news story coming to light about how the North Wales Police Force inadvertently nearly cripple an elderly pensioner by accident. A ninety year old woman had been crossing the street when she was hit by a police car, sending her to hospital for a seven month long hospital stay; this isn’t just a case of a few cuts and scrapes that you can just slap a sticking plaster on and send the patient home – there were broken legs, arms, and elbows, and medical staff say it’s dodgy whether the poor woman will be able to walk properly.

The driver of the police car may have been cleared of reckless driving by a local Magistrates’ Court, but that hasn’t stopped the pensioner from making an accident claim against North Wales Police, and a police spokesperson refused to comment on the case, as it was still pending. Of course, police forces across the UK have more to worry about than just that, as it seems like when law enforcement officers aren’t hitting little old ladies, they’re doing damage to one another!

In fact, another news report emerged that Lancashire Police Force has been a hotbed of activity when it came to personal injury at work over the last five years. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 4,000 injuries were reported from 2007, some of them self-inflicted while others being the result of accidents caused by colleagues.

2011’s injury figures in Lancashire were up over 2010’s, according to a recent Freedom of Information request, but a police force spokesman was quick to point out that the number of accidents was actually trending down overall. Not much comfort for someone laid up in hospital while they’re recovering from a possibly life-threatening injury, but at least they’re not off running over pensioners.

North Wales Police Force nearly cripples pensioner

While sometimes police officers are injured in the line of duty, at other times regular citizens end up suffering injuries at their hands, much as Beryl Evans suffered recently after the grandmother of two was struck by police car.

Mrs Evans, a ninety one year old pensioner, has decided to seek personal injury compensation for the incident, which saw hospitalised for seven long months after she was struck by a police vehicle as she tried to cross the road. The grandmum sustained a broken elbow, arm, and leg, and nearly crippled her; according to her personal injury claims, there is a good chance that she may not be able to walk again.

How does a police officer just up and smash into a ninety one year old woman? It’s not like pensioners just dart across the street like a stray cat, and when a pedestrian is struck by a vehicle, it’s usually a case of careless driving on the part of the driver, but a Dolgellau Magistrates’ Court hearing cleared the driver of reckless driving.

However, the injured woman and her family have instead made a civil car accident claim against the police. Mrs Evans’ daughter, Yvonne, was righteously angry in a statement, remarking how her mother had been ‘robbed’ of her her independence  – and she has a point, considering how one of Mrs Evans’ favourite pastimes was taking regular walks in an effort to remain fit.

North Wales Police Force has been tight-lipped as always. With a matter currently ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment on the case, a spokesman said.

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