Road Traffic Accident
Jamie, an 11-year-old boy, was travelling to Heathrow Airport in April 2002 in the back of a taxi with his mother. Both of them were wearing seatbelts.
Suddenly, without warning, the taxi driver lost control of his vehicle and hit a wall. Jamie’s mother sustained a broken leg and some serious bruising. However, Jamie was knocked unconscious and was taken to hospital. He spent three weeks in intensive care in a coma and was subsequently in hospital for several more weeks. Sadly, he suffered serious brain injury as well as physical injuries and needs care and support for the rest of his life.
Jamie’s mother contacted us to bring an accident claim for compensation on behalf of herself and Jamie against the taxi driver. The insurers quickly admitted liability and settled Jamie’s mother’s personal injury claim for £15,000.
Jamie’s mother was clearly devastated that Jamie had sustained such serious injuries. Our experienced brain injury lawyers were able to put her in touch with local charities and she found this a great source of support.
As Jamie’s injuries were so serious, we arranged for a rehabilitation company to assess him. They put together a care and rehabilitation programme to enable him to maximise his recovery in the early days and were able to advise his mother what care and support he needed in the future and what adaptations needed to be made to their home to accommodate his disabilities.
We obtained details of how much these would cost and then obtained an interim payment from the taxi driver’s insurers to put the necessary care programme and accommodation adaptations in place, while we prepared the rest of the compensation claim.
A great deal of expert evidence was needed, including medical evidence to assess Jamie’s long-term condition, including his life expectancy. This clearly had to be handled very sensitively and our experienced personal injury lawyers were able to impart the necessary information in a sympathetic manner.
We also obtained reports from experts in the fields of physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy to see what Jamie might need in the future to help him. As it was clear that Jamie would never work, we were also able to ask an employment expert to assess what he would have earned in the future if he had not had the accident.
Jamie’s accident claim was settled in 2005 for £3.2m. As he was still a child, the settlement had to be approved by the court and we were able to support both Jamie and his mother through this daunting process. After the settlement had been finalised, we put Jamie’s mother in touch with the Court of Protection who look after the settlements of very seriously injured people, including victims of brain injury such as Jamie.
We are still in regular contact with Jamie’s mother, who keeps us advised of his progress.
S & G Associates can assist with your personal injury claim. We offer a ‘no win no fee’ policy which prevents you from costly risk in pursuing your accident claim.
To find out if you could make a case for accident compensation like Peter’s simply call our freephone number or complete the online enquiry form NOW for totally confidential, free, no-obligation advice from an expert personal injury lawyer.