Personal car accident and work injury compensation claim at Injuries Direct

A girl who was left disabled for life after a traumatic birth has been awarded a £4million injury compensation package.

Six-year-old Holly Nixon from Kidderminster has cerebral palsy after she was starved of oxygen during her birth at the Worcestershire Royal Hospital in 2003.

Doctors decided that Holly would need to be delivered by emergency caesarean, but this process was delayed to such an extent that her condition seriously deteriorated.

When she was finally delivered she was suffering from severe oxygen starvation, which caused permanent brain damage and left her quadriplegic. She is now unable to move independently, and has limited speech and vision.

After a six-year battle to claim compensation from the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, Holly’s parents Emma and Carl Nixon finally received the result they wanted when liability for the incident was accepted.

Following out-of-court discussions, the Trust agreed to pay a lump sum of £2million, along with annual care payments for the rest of her life.

In a statement, Mr Nixon said: “Holly should be running around with her friends and starting music or dancing classes.

“We have been robbed of this and so many other countless opportunities that she should have had in life and it is extremely difficult to come to terms with this, particularly as we now know it’s all down to basic mistakes made during her birth.”

Britain’s most dangerous roads have been named in a survey released this week.

The notorious road traffic accident hotspots were named in the report, which covered 28,000 miles of Britain’s motorways and A-roads.

The A537 road, which connects Macclesfield with Buxton, was declared the most dangerous. Nine of the top ten most treacherous roads named were from the north of England.

The 7.5 mile stretch running between East Cheshire and the Derbyshire Peak District is a popular route with tourists, motorcyclists and lorries. It saw 34 fatal collisions between 2006 and 2008, which were mainly blamed on the road’s sharp bends and steep falls.

The survey, carried out by the Road Safety Foundation charity, found that single roads carry six times more risk than motorways, and that a third of crashes that result in death or serious injury happen at junctions.

There is however some good news for motorists, as a 5% reduction in the number of fatal crashes was recorded on the perilous highways.

The West Midlands was declared the safest region to drive, while the most improved road was named as the A40 stretch between Llandovery and Carmarthen in the south-west of Wales.

The Road Safety Foundation is now urging the government to spend more on improving the most dangerous roads, which in turn would help to reduce hospital costs.

Charity director Joanne Hill said: “Simple, relatively inexpensive engineering measures, such as improvements to signing and lining, resurfacing and the layout of signals at junctions, are paying dividends and are affordable particularly when done as part of well planned routine maintenance.”

Top 10 Dangerous Roads

1)    A537 Macclesfield to Buxton (Cheshire – Derbyshire)
2)    A5012 Pikehall to Matlock (Derbyshire)
3)    A621 Baslow to Totley (Derbyshire – South Yorkshire)
4)    A625 Calver to Sheffield (South Yorkshire)
5)    A54 Congleton to Buxton (Cheshire – Derbyshire)
6)    A581 Rufford to Chorley (Lancashire)
7)    A5004 Whaley Bridge to Buxton (Derbyshire)
8)    A675 Blackburn to Preston (Lancashire)
9)    A61 Barnsley to Wakefield (South Yorkshire – West Yorkshire)
10)  A285 Chichester to Petworth (West Sussex)

A Tory peer has pledged to remove the health and safety rules that stop emergency service workers performing their duties.

Lord Young told The Times that “children were dying because of health and safety”, and that workers from the emergency services, such as the police and firemen, were “paid for doing a job that involves risk”.

The news comes after the Conservative party announced plans to review the growing ‘compensation culture’ in the UK. Their findings are due to be published this summer.

In the article, Lord Young said: “Technically speaking the firemen could say they wouldn’t go into a fire because it was too dangerous. We’ve just got to get sense back into the system.”

He also argued that the system was ‘wrong’ if a Ministry of Defence secretary could be awarded more in compensation for alleged sexual discrimination than a soldier injured whilst serving in Afghanistan.

Critics say the party are exaggerating the issue and that their ideas were based on myth, including teachers forcing pupils to wear goggles to play conkers, and trainee hairdressers being banned from using scissors.

Muiris Lyons, the president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, said: “Where people are needlessly injured, through others’ fault, they should be able to obtain access to justice.”

Doctors should only be allowed to treat patients if they have a good understanding of the English language, a top medic has argued.

Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA) has called for tighter regulations in allowing doctors from abroad to practice in the UK.

His request comes after the medical negligence and subsequent death of pensioner David Gray, who was given 20 times the safe amount of prescription drug by German GP Daniel Ubani.

Ubani, working his first shift in Britain, had previously failed an English test when he applied to work in Leeds. However, he was still granted permission to work in Cambridgeshire by the NHS.

Speaking at the BMA’s annual conference, Dr Meldrum said: “We seem to be able to do little or nothing to check that doctors from overseas – especially from Europe – meet the proper standards of language and competence.”

GP’s from the European Union are using EU work laws that state that doctors should be treated the same as British medics, and therefore scrutiny into their work has often been overlooked.

Doctors from outside the European Union are still required to take language and competency tests before they are allowed to treat patients.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: “We are working closely with the GMC to ensure that foreign healthcare professionals are not allowed to work in the NHS unless they have proven their competence and language skills, and we are currently exploring a number of options to put a stop to foreign doctors slipping through the net.”

A man who was left paralysed following a road accident will receive a £650,000 upfront compensation claim payment.

Darren Best, 40, is likely to collect £2million after an accident in 2008 left him with devastating spinal injuries and unable to move from the waist down.

Mr Best was travelling as a passenger in a van driven by his friend, Damion Smyth, who was allegedly over the legal drink-drive limit.

When driving near Northampton Mr Smyth lost control of the vehicle and the pair ploughed into the gates of the historic stately home Overstone Hall.

It’s believed that Mr Best and Mr Smyth had met earlier in the day and had been drinking together before getting in the van.

Although Mr Smyth’s legal team admitted ‘primary liability’ in the case, Mr Justice Tugendhat told the court that there were issues with contributory negligence.

He said: “The defence case is that Mr Best was not wearing a seat belt, and that he got into the van when he must have known that Mr Smyth had had far too much to drink.”

Mr Best will reportedly buy the bungalow he is currently renting and then adapt it to his needs with the £650,000 he has been awarded.

The Met Office has paid out thousands in accident compensation to people whose property has been damaged by falling weather balloons.

Recently released figures show that the organisation has forked out £25,000 since October 2007 on such related events.

Incidents resulting in payouts include balloons smashing car windows, a glass conservatory roof and landing on overhead power lines.

The helium balloons, known as radiosondes, are used by the Met Office to measure temperature and humidity up to 70,000 feet into the atmosphere.

Upon reaching the desired height, the balloon bursts and the sensor box carrying the relevant data falls back to earth attached to a parachute.

However, landings are not always soft and there are regular occurrences of damage being caused to property that they land on.

Defending the Met Office, a spokesperson said: “Someone calls approximately once every six months saying that a radiosonde might have damaged their property. To put this in context we launch around 3,000 a year.”

The spokesperson added that the public-funded organisation: “apologises for any damage that has been caused. If they (people) wish to claim compensation we will pay any claim accordingly.”

A paperboy who was knocked down by a lorry while on his round has lost his claim for compensation.

Joshua Smith suffered multiple injuries including a fractured pelvis, an open head wound, a ruptured kidney, broken teeth and brain damage when he was hit in September 2005 aged just 13.

Court judges decided that the driver of the lorry was not to blame for the accident, after evidence showed that Joshua had ridden into the road without looking.

The HGV driver, Mark Hammond, will instead be entitled to receive a payout for the post-traumatic stress disorder that he has suffered with since knocking the youngster from his bike. This will be made by Joshua’s employer, the Co-operative group.

Mr Hammond had been travelling the legal speed limit of 30mph but still attempted to ‘swerve’ out of the way when he saw the teenager riding at speed into his path.

In a hearing at the High Court last year, it was ruled that he would be deemed 40% responsible for the accident as he had failed to sound his horn before the impact.

However, the appeal court judge Lord Justice Moor-Bick said that Mr Hammond was a “reasonably prudent motorist” and that the accident would still have happened if his horn was sounded.

Joshua, who still suffers with short-term memory difficulties, is now unable to make a lorry accident claim for his injuries.

A prisoner serving life for murder has won a compensation claim for dental negligence.

Michael Steele was awarded £44,500 from the Home Office after a court ruled that his dental problems had been ignored by prison officers.

He was originally awarded £66,400 in a hearing last year. And, although the Home Office appealed this figure, the judge still declared them liable to pay him compensation at the revised, lower amount.

The court heard how Mr Steele’s fillings had fallen out soon after he was put in prison for the now notorious Essex murders.

He had since suffered with ‘persistent severe pain’, which he claims was made worse from being moved between numerous high security prisons.

Appeal court judge Lady Justice Smith said that the problem had been: “a bad case involving persistent severe pain over nearly four years, together with more moderate pain for two years and some significant deterioration in the general condition of his teeth.”

Mr Steele was ordered to serve three life sentences, for the murders of Patrick Tate, Anthony Tucker and Craig Rolfe in 1998. The famous killings were recreated in the 2000 British film ‘Essex Boys’ starring Sean Bean.

A miraculously lucky man who survived a horrific road traffic accident had a four leaf clover stuck to his back.

Doctors were stunned when they removed a wooden fence post that had impaled the victim during the crash to find the rare clover, which is generally seen as a symbol of good luck.

Raymond Curry, 20, was driving to work when his Vauxhall Corsa overturned near his home in Cramlington, Northumberland earlier this month.

As the car rolled down an embankment it crashed through a wooden fence. Three posts punched through the underside of the vehicle, with one of these going completely though Mr Curry’s body.

When the emergency services arrived he was cut from the wreckage, with the pole impaled through him, and transferred by air ambulance to hospital. The post had missed his vital organs by inches.

Surgeons also found an air freshener which had become lodged inside his body. It’s thought that as the fence pole smashed through the windscreen, it took the air freshener, which was attached the rear-view mirror, through Mr Curry’s body as it impaled him.

He said: “It was the most pain I have ever felt in my life. I woke up pinned inside my car with blood streaming down my face and I couldn’t move.”

Doctors had to remove part of his bowel in order to take out the pole, but apart from that Mr Curry has made a full recovery.

He added: “It’s amazing. I know how lucky I am to be alive. I’d never even seen a four-leaf clover until this happened, so it was great timing I suppose.

“I really believed I was going to die. (My car) was completely crushed. It makes you appreciate how lucky you are.”

Mr Curry and his family are now fundraising for the Great North Air Ambulance.

A man who claims he was the victim of poor quality knee surgery has finally won his battle for injury compensation.

A £3million scheme saw a number of surgeons drafted in from Scandinavia to help reduce the waiting times for certain surgical procedures. When Bristol man Terry Heath was offered the chance to bring forward his operation, he understandably jumped at the chance.

However, just one year later and suffering with agonising pain, he had to return to have further surgery to correct the mistakes made in the first procedure.

Mr Heath was not the only person to have complained about mistakes made in joint replacement operations at the Weston General Hospital. Many other patients claimed to be suffering with pain because of the alleged botched operations by the Scandinavian surgeons.

Although the final compensation payout figure was left undisclosed, it’s thought that Mr Heath will purchase a bungalow to live in to help with his disabilities.

Weston Area Health Trust decided to settle the claim out of court just two weeks before the hearing was due to take place.

The solicitor representing Mr Heath said: “I am delighted that the case has settled on satisfactory terms at last so Mr Heath can provide himself with suitable accommodation, equipment, therapies and care that he needs to make a real difference to his life.”