So when can you claim and what sort of payout can you expect? Read on for more advice…
When can I claim?
You are entitled to make a claim for personal injury compensation when you have suffered injury and / or loss as a result of someone else’s negligence. This could be the negligence of a person, such as a driver in a road accident, or it could be a company like your employer or a supermarket.
If the injury was caused through no fault of your own and the blame may be with someone else, you could be entitled to compensation.
Some examples of crush injury claims where you may be eligible for a payout can be:
- Being run over as a pedestrian causing a crush injury from the weight of a vehicle
- Crush injuries at work from machinery
- Crush injuries from manual handling – say a colleague dropped a heavy load on to your toes, causing injury
- Crush injuries caused by doors or hatches
If you need to know whether you have a claim or not, just call our free claims helpline on 0800 634 75 75 for specialist help and advice.
Payouts
Crush injuries can be sustained almost anywhere on the body, so I’ll try and cover as much as I can when it comes to the guideline compensation awards. But there can be significant differences in payouts depending on the quality of your lawyer, so we always recommend that you seek advice and representation from a firm of specialist personal injury solicitors.
Also, the payout really comes down to the severity and length of the injury. You can also claim for losses and expenses on top, like lost earnings, loss on the open labour market if the injury causes problems continuing your occupation or trade, and medical expenses. We can only know the true value of a claim using expert medical evidence, so the advice here is just as a basic guide only.
Remember, the below is just for the injury – for severe cases, an award is largely comprised of the losses and expenses parts. The official guidelines say as follows.
Upper Body and Limbs
These can attract high awards given they can severely impair the ability to work or continue working in many trades, skills, and occupations. When it comes to the hands they can of course have a significant impact.
- Most severe crush injuries to the hand causing effective loss of one hand: £68,750 – £78,300
- Severe hand crush injury resulting in significantly impaired function: £10,350 – £20,750
- General hand crush injuries with little or no long term affect: £4,500 – £9,500
- Compression/crush fracture of the lumbar vertebrae: £19,850 – £27,700
There can of course be lower awards for much simpler soft tissue damage caused by crushing injuries.
Lower Limb Crush Injuries
- Severe leg crush injury claims: £19,850 – £28,000
- Severe toe crush injuries falling short of amputation: £9,800 – £15,000
- Serious crush and fracture injuries affecting more than one toe: £6,850 – £9,800
- Straightforward toe crush injuries: up to £6,850
The above are the only sections of the official guidelines that specifically refer to crush injury claims so you can of course claim damages for other areas not mentioned above like the arms and feet. As I said though, it all depends on how severe the injury is and how good your lawyer is!