No win no fee solicitors help woman receive compensation
No win no fee solicitors have helped a 71-year-old woman receive compensation after a personal injury on public property.
The victim was injured after she accidentally stepped on an unsecured manhole cover, whilst out for a walk four years ago.
She commented on the ordeal: "One moment I was walking along and the next I was lying on the ground and my face was covered in blood. I didn't know how I had got there or what I had done.
"I was fortunate that a man was walking his dogs nearby and picked me up and took me to the doctor, who then sent me to hospital to be checked out."
She said she first considered filing a compensation claim after seeing her doctor: "When I was being examined at the hospital, the doctor told me I had a lump on the bone under my left eye and said: 'You can claim compensation for this.'"
The pensioner was awarded £2,500 from Stoke on-Trent City Council for the accident, with the help of no win no fee solicitors one year later.
However, she noted that whilst the payout may compensate victims for their physical injuries, it cannot help those with psychological or emotional trauma.
Mental scars remain
Whilst physical injuries can heal, mental scars may stay forever: "It has been four years since my accident, but I worry about falling whenever I go outside now.
"I am an Age Concern volunteer and consider myself to be fairly fit, but after the accident my confidence went and I just felt safer staying indoors."
She noted that the accident has placed a terrible burden on her lifestyle: "I lost my independence and my confidence and it has taken me a long time to begin to get them back."
This comment has opened the floodgates for a huge debate on personal injury and the trauma it leaves behind. One 84-year-old woman spoke of a friend who suffered a bad fall and never really recovered from the incident.
"My friend fell in Moorland Road and suffered a very bad leg injury. Sadly, she never really recovered and she has died now. It takes people our age weeks and weeks to get back on our feet after a fall."
She furthered: "It shouldn't be about whether councils have got enough money to repair roads and pavements, it should be about protecting people's health."
Another fall victim, an 86-year-old from Cobridge, spoke of an accident when she was crossing the road, she too now finds it difficult to get on with her life: "I just remember walking across the road and getting to the kerb, and then suddenly finding myself lying on my back.
"I had to go to hospital because I was bleeding from a vein in my leg. They referred me to a special falls clinic at Bucknall Hospital, where they treat you for the psychological effects as well as the physical injury.
"I'm just coming to the end of my eight-week treatment of physiotherapy and confidence-building. I haven't been out on my own yet since the fall."
Don’t fall at the last hurdle
No win no fee solicitors have comforted many injury victims and stated that whilst dealing with the injury can be very difficult, claiming compensation need not to be.
One no-win, no-fee solicitor said: "Making a claim is a straight forward process and it is then just a case of proving that reasonable steps could have been taken to prevent an accident from happening."
Updated on 8/5/2009