£40,000 secured for our client who suffered an accident at work.

Our client was installing decking near the lake of a private farm when he fell three feet down the river bank. He sustained injuries to his back, the ribs on his left side as well as his left knee. After visiting the hospital, he was initially diagnosed with a left knee soft tissue injury.

After his symptoms did not improve, he visited the hospital again six weeks later where an MRI scan showed he had a torn meniscus, a rupturing of the knee cartilage. His knee symptoms at the time were described as locking, clicking, grinding, and giving way. The symptoms prevented our client from working or attending the gym.

Expert opinion obtained by Blackwater Law concluded that our client would achieve 80% recovery of function post-surgery but be left with some residual weakness and stiffness in the knee.

Our client was reviewed for an updated prognosis, where his left leg showed significant wasting of the quadricep muscle on the left compared to the right. His range of movement was reduced by 10 degrees, but the muscle graft itself looked like it was holding.

Once the further scans were reviewed, our expert opined that a 90% recovery was achieved, although he was still left with significant residual weakness of the quadriceps. He advised that this might improve over the following 12 months when it would plateau, but it would not return to the pre-accident state.

Our client also suffered psychologically from the incident as well as a result of being out of work and suffering from a lack of sleep. Our psychological expert opined that our client would fulfil the diagnosis of a Major Depressive Episode of mild to moderate intensity.

While liability was admitted by the contractors who employed our client to carry out the work, Blackwater Law’s Ben Ho was able to secure significantly more compensation than was initially offered, owing to the strong medical evidence obtained by Blackwater Law.