Personal Injury Claims Bristol Blog

The owner of a coach company has been found guilty of dangerous driving offences after a young boy fell out of a vehicle onto the motorway. The coach had been taking a youth rugby team to a game on 16 May 2014 when one of the passengers, a 13-year-old boy, leaned on a “defective” emergency door and fell out of the vehicle. 

A pensioner has been awarded compensation for her serious injuries after being thrown 15ft down a bus during an accident in Nuneaton. The woman in her 80s, who requests to remain anonymous, received over £80,000 in damages after suffering severe injuries in the accident, including a broken spine and several broken ribs.  She had been onboard a Stagecoach bus when the accident happened in Collycroft in November 2012.

Robert Blackwell, 19, from Hayway Lane, Bampton, Oxfordshire, has been given a 4 year jail sentence after admitting dangerous driving resulting in the death of schoolgirl, Liberty Baker, 14, on 30 June.  Blackwell’s car mounted the pavement killing Liberty and injuring 2 of her friends as they walked to school in Witney, Oxfordshire.  Blackwell admitted causing death by dangerous driving and inflicting serious injury by dangerous driving, and admitted to having smoked cannabis on the day before taking to the road.  The incident took place in Curbridge Road and also involved Paul Cracknell who was walking on the pavement behind the girls.  Mr Cracknell is still receiving treatment for the serious leg injuries which he sustained.

Following an inspection carried out by Ofsted last December, the residential Royal School for the Deaf in Derby has been put into special measures.  This follows the discovery by inspectors that children were being put at risk of grooming and that pupil safety was not being prioritised.  Following December’s inspection, a week long, unannounced inspection carried out in March found that recommendations for improvement had still not been implemented, and that “emergency safeguarding systems put in place by leaders” since the December inspection were “unsound”.

A man has been awarded £1.3million in compensation after faulty gym equipment left him blind in one eye and partially sighted in the other. 46-year-old Muaro Carneiro had been using the equipment at David Lloyd Leisure, founded by the former British tennis star, when a fitness resistance band came free from its fastings and hit him in the eyes. David Lloyd Leisure admitted failing to discharge a duty contrary to section 30 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 at Teeside crown court.

A new study has found that the most expensive places for an uninsured Brit to suffer an injury are the US and Canada.  The study looked at winter sports particularly, with treatment for a broken leg costing £26,000 (USD$40,000) in the US and £15,000 (CAD$28,000) in Canada. After America and Canada, Austria and Switzerland came next in the rankings.

Recently released figures have uncovered that cyclists in London have been involved in just under 23,000 accidents in the last five years.  The figures, gathered by the Department for Transport (DfT), found that cyclists had been involved in 22,988 accidents, with 80 resulting in deaths.  The information highlighted that the most common accident spot was the Elephant and Castle roundabout in south London, with 80 accidents involving cyclists having occurred there between 2009 and 2013.

An East Sussex hospital has apologised to the family of a breast cancer patient who died following an operation in 2012. 35-year-old Nicole Haynes was undergoing a routine procedure at the Eastbourne District General Hospital to remove a tumour from her adrenal gland when the surgeon accidentally “clipped the wrong vessels”. It was heard that surgeon Steve Garnett had “misidentified” the arteries which caused the death of Mrs Haynes.

Suffolk County Council has paid out £70,000 to claimants for pothole damage over the last two years. The figures were released under a Freedom of Information request, which uncovered the sum to be made up of personal injury compensation, vehicle damage, legal fees and other costs.

A former nurse has been awarded £225,000 in compensation after she was forced to leave her job following a serious fall on holiday. 58-year-old Kathleen Powell had been a nurse for the army when she went on holiday to Tenerife in 2006.  The accident happened during a salsa dancing class when she slipped on a wet floor, around which were no warning signs. Ms Powell suffered three broken bones in her leg and two broken toes.  She is still in pain eight years after the accident happened.

After a family recently received compensation for the brain damage of their son following a hospital error, figures have revealed that the health trust has paid out over £37.8 million to patients in the last ten years. Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust agreed to compensate the family of Cody Lyster-Hughes £6.5m earlier this week – one of the biggest payouts the health trust has ever made.

Hull City Council is to pay compensation to a five-year-old boy after he tripped and fell on an unsafe drain.  Jayden Willby, from east Hull, suffered injuries after tripping on an unsafe drain nearby his home last November.  The drain was highlighted as a hazard to the council on the day of Jayden’s injury, but nothing was done to mend it. Five months later, Jayden’s mum, Candice Gilchrist, decided to take action, arguing that children frequently walk to school on that road.

A special care unit for people with learning disabilities is ‘unlikely to reopen’ after a teenage boy died in the bath last year. 18-year-old Connor Sparrowhawk was found unconscious in a bath at Slade House, Headington, Oxford, on the 4^th of July last year.  He died in hospital later that day.

It has recently been identified by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) that the platforms of many train stations slope towards the tracks. A spokesperson from the branch said that the rail industry has not identified this as a problem, despite it having caused numerous accidents.  With reports ranging from a child in a pushchair to a wheelchair user rolling onto the tracks, the majority of the reports laid the blame on the passengers involved.

According to new research, patients have to wait in ambulance queues outside of A&E for hours before being seen by a doctor.  Last year more than 300,000 ambulances were forced to queue outside of hospitals in England with patients inside.  With a national waiting time target of 15 minutes, one patient waited for more than eight hours in an ambulance before being seen by a doctor.

The families of 28 injured schoolchildren have launched legal action just over a month after two buses collided during their school runs.  The accident happened in County Durham on the 3^rd of June when one bus, taking children to Tanfield School, crashed into another bus that had been taking children to St Bede’s School.  The two buses crashed head-on in Lanchester, with two drivers and 28 children taken to hospital as a result.

New detection software has been fitted to four London buses for a trial period of six weeks.  The technology will detect pedestrians and cyclists, with the hope that accidents will be greatly reduced on the roads.  The software alerts bus drivers when pedestrians and cyclists are close to the vehicle, making drivers more aware of their spatial surroundings.