A farm worker has made an accident claim, following an incident at the place where he worked in Worcestershire.
The 24-year-old was affected by serve
personal injuries, which were sustained while he loaded a trailer with hay bales during the harvesting season.
He was standing more than 15 ft from the ground on the back of a trailer, to stack the bails which were being dropped by a forklift. At some point the driver of the tractor - who was the farm manager - drove off with notice, knocking the farm driver to the ground.
The worker was knocked unconscious after the fall and also broke his leg in the
work accident. When he came to, he found a number of his colleagues attending to him; an ambulance was also on the way to reach the worker.
He was rushed to hospital where he was given a scan to check there was no brain injury, stitches to fix the nasty gash in his head and his broken leg was operated on.
Kept in hospital, unable to work
The extent of the
accident was the so extreme that he was kept in hospital for several days before being discharged with instructions to remain off work for at least a couple of months.
Working on the farm work was the young man's only source of income and it was during the harvest season that he normally worked exceptionally long hours, which meant he was earning a lot of money as a result.
Due to his broken leg he was obviously unable to work and so was unable to earn money. Luckily, he had some savings and so was able to survive although he did have to tighten his belt enormously to get through the lean period.
The worker was understandably angry that he had been left injured and unable to live his normal life through no fault of his own and so decided to find out about making an accident at work
compensation claim against the owner of the farm on which he had been working.
Using the Internet he found out about and contacted a legal firm.
Injury lawyers from the firm represented the worker on a no win no fee basis and making a claim would be totally cost-free.
Anxious farmer admits liability
Speaking to one of the firm's personal injury lawyer who was also an expert on agricultural accident claims, he took the case on. He contacted the farm owner and informed them that a personal injury compensation claim was being made against them.
The farmer was anxious to avoid a potentially costly court case and, knowing that the farm accident had been his fault, admitted
liability immediately.
He offered his former employee a settlement of just under £5,000 but our personal injury solicitors refused this, rightly insisting that the accident claim was worth more.
A week later the farm owner came back with an improved work injury compensation offer of a little over £10,000, which the injured farm worker accepted. He used the money to top up his savings and also went back to college to work towards a new career so that he would not be exposed to a similar accident again.
