Snow-related personal injury compensation claims
With this winter’s extensive snowfall, many are expecting a rise in the number of personal injury compensation claims, as the snow brings with it a whole host of potential accident risks.
The extreme winter weather seen in the November and December of 2010 was reportedly among the worst weather this country has seen in a whole century, at least in some parts of the UK. While the snow is certainly beautiful – and a white Christmas looks increasingly likely – but there is, as it were, a dark side to the snow; severe weather conditions can make even innocuous, quotidian tasks significantly more dangerous.
A recent news story, that occurred this very month, makes clear just how real this risk is.
A girl, just 14 years of age, suffered a serious spinal injury while helping her father, who owned a farm, to clear a path through the snow. While she was doing this, there was a great fall of snow from the roof of a nearby building. The snow and ice fell on top of the girl, trapping her and freezing her legs to such a degree that she couldn’t even feel them.
The accident was made even more severe by the fact that the girl could not get treatment for so long: before an ambulance could reach her, a path had to be cleared through the snow by a tractor.
After being taken to hospital, the girl had to undergo extensive operations on her back, as she was unable to move her legs. Family and friends feared that the girl could be permanently paralysed from the waist down as result of her accident.
This accident serves as a clear example of how snow can be a serious risk; not only in the original cause of the accident, but in other ways: had the ambulance been able to reach the girl more quickly, her injuries would likely have been much less severe.
Unfortunately, this girl’s accident is not even the only illustrative example that can be given from recent news stories. Recent weeks have seen at least 7 deaths in the UK which are directly attributable to the extreme weather; 2 men were killed in a collision when their truck was hit by a lorry, 2 teenagers were killed in a separate collision with a postal van; a man was killed in a road accident when he was hit by a 4x4 in the process of trying to help another driver who was stuck in a roadside ditch after an accident of his own, and, finally, 2 pensioners have died in their own gardens after slipping on the ice.
It will be seen in coming months how much the weather affects the number of people making compensation claims.
Updated on 1/4/2011