Any injuries to the hands, fingers, or thumbs can leave the victim at a huge disadvantage when it comes to going about your everyday life. Unless you’ve been unfortunate enough to have injured yourself in this way, most people may not appreciate just how bad it can be.
It can affect you at work, domestically, socially – in most walks of life. On the subject of shattered thumbs – a most serious injury when it comes to the thumb – what can you claim for and what can you expect to receive?
The Injury Payout
In all honesty, you don’t get much for the actual injury payout for even losses of fingers and thumbs. You do for hands, but when it comes to thumbs the payouts are not as high as you probably expect they might be.
For an injury where the bone has been shattered, perhaps through a high speed impact injury or a crushing injury, you will presumably need an operation and wires and pins inserted in to the thumb. This does not guarantee a full recovery though, and you may still be left with permanent weakness and pain sensations, as well as a loss of grip in the whole hand.
Where your injury fits this category, you can expect payouts to be in the ranges of £9,000 to £12,000. A lot of people think they should be entitled to more, but this is what the guidelines say. If the thumb was more seriously injured, perhaps requiring a reattachment with a poor recovery, payouts can extend up to £25,000.
Losses Payouts
The injury payout above is for General Damages which covers the pain, suffering, and loss of amenity caused. This doesn’t take in to account financial losses, or perhaps other individual losses that may not be so common. When it comes to financial losses, we’re talking lost earnings, medical expenses, treatment expenses, and so on.
These are all assessed on a case by case basis. If we were to look at a case where the injured victim perhaps uses their thumbs a lot – maybe because they’re an electrician – then injury payouts can be a lot higher. If the injury permanently affects your ability to do your job, we can claim for future lost earnings and loss on the open labour market given your restrictions. So the individual problems are looked at as they could push the value of the claim up quite a lot.
There could be other things to look at as well – perhaps you were a keen cyclist prior to the accident, meaning that your ability to grip the handlebars has now been seriously diminished leading to problems with riding. Perhaps you play a musical instrument – I play the guitar for example, and losing partial use of my thumb on my fretting hand would certainly cause problems.