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Safety reviews are being conducted on all 1,800 bridges in Cumbria following severe flooding in the area. Six bridges have already collapsed in the area and a further bridge has been condemned due to suspicions it may be about to fall.

The collapse of the bridges and flooding of the area have caused chaos with people evacuated from their homes and some people have already been killed as a result. Amongst those was PC Bill Barker, who died on Friday morning when a bridge outside Workington collapsed.

According to the BBC, the conditions have forced the closure of schools and are playing havoc with commutes. Fire crews and structural engineers are monitoring the worst hit areas to ensure that buildings are safe.
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When we buy a product, primarily one that we ingest or apply to ourselves in some way, we are placing a significant degree of trust in the manufacturer that it is safe to use the product.

Manufacturers must put their products through rigorous testing in order to comply with health and safety regulations, and all products must be suitable for their intended use and should not cause harm or injury to the consumer using them.

Both the BBC and The Daily Mail have recently reported that Procter & Gamble have recalled around 120,000 bottles of Vicks Sinex Nasal spray after small traces of a bacteria were found in the product following routine testing (news source here and here).
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A traditional Bonfire night celebration may come to an end after two men suffered serious burns in a tar barrel explosion.

According to the BBC, the event involves flaming tar barrels being carried through Ottery St Mary in Devon and has been ongoing since the 17^th Century. It attracts as many as 20,000 people to the town.

However, according to police one of the crowd appears to have thrown an aerosol in to a barrel, causing an explosion. One of the men suffered serious facial burns and another received burns to his hand. In addition, a further 10 people received minor burn injuries.
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10 passengers who survived a crash on a Boeing 777 aircraft which occurred near Heathrow airport are to sue the aircraft manufacturer. The flight was travelling between Beijing and London in January 2008. All 152 passengers survived the crash but several suffered injury as a result of the incident.

According to the BBC a report is being conducted by the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (or AAIB) in to the accident but it has yet to be finalised. However, in the interim reports which it has produced on the cause of the crash it appears that both of the vehicles engines suffered from a reduced fuel flow as the plane was coming in to land and there is a belief that it is possible that ice may have accumulated in the plane’s fuel system.

The allegation being put forward by the injured parties is that the vehicle was defective and the expert reports  indicate that the fault may be common to other 777s as well, making it an actual manufacturing deficiency, rather than a one off fault.
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It seems that the tragedy of medical negligence has again hit the news, with BBC reporting of a Mother’s fatal heart attack after a drug was incorrectly administered.

According to BBC reports 30 year old theatre nurse Mayra Cabrera died of a heart attack shortly after giving birth to her son Zac in May 2004, after the drug Bupivacaine, which is supposed to be administered by epidural, was instead injected in to her arm by way of an intravenous drip. It is reported that fortunately baby Zac survived. (source).

The hospital in Swindon is now being prosecuted over alleged health and safety breaches and will be appearing at a magistrate’s court at a later date. An inquest in to the death has already concluded it as unlawful with the coroner making several recommendations including better labelling of drugs.
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A new fence may have been responsible for the death of a man whose car was hit by a train in North Yorkshire.

According to the BBC, Mr John Power, 54, died when his car went on to the railway tracks at Copmanthorpe in 2006.

An inquest which was being held in York heard how a new fence had been erected near the tracks six weeks prior to the accident and that, not only was the new fence not as visible as the previous fence, it did not indicated that there were railway tracks beyond it.

Mr John Milner, who lived locally and gave evidence at the inquest, also criticised the signage in the area which he felt failed to sufficiently alert drivers to the nearby railway line.
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If you have been keeping up with the news lately, you may have heard of the calls for law changes for sun tanning salons; in particular the unsupervised ones.

Personaly I am amazed there is such thing as an unsupervised tanning salon, given the nature of the service they provide!

Thesun.co.uk has reported of the 14 year old girl who earlier this year suffered 70% burns to her body after spending almost 20 minutes in a sun bed! (source).

The girl has placed £1 in a coin operated sun bed for five minutes before adding a further £3 for a further 15 minutes after she felt she was not getting tanned enough. She was rushed to hospital later that day with first degree burns to three quarters of her body and given treatment to rehydrate her body.
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Claiming for personal injury: anyone can do it! The simple formula required for a claim to be successful is that another person or party can be found negligent in their duty of care over others.

This negligence has then caused the victim to be injured or to have suffered in some way, whether physically or psychologically. And this duty of care should be something even more essential in a school…

If you have been keeping up with the news lately, you may have noticed the word ‘bullying’ been thrown about a lot recently. According to the BBC 47% of 14 year olds (almost half!) experience some form of bullying, government statistics have concluded (source).
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A hotel in Yorkshire has been forced to temporarily close after staff were found to be suffering from a stomach infection.

According to the BBC, the Middlethorpe Hall Hotel closed on Sunday when as many as 20 staff reported feeling unwell. The staff are all currently being tested to see whether they have been affected by the norovirus illness. It is not known whether any customers at the hotel suffered illness and the decision to close the hotel temporarily has been acknowledged to be a preventative decision made in the interests of staff and customers.
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Here at The Injury Lawyers, with our many years of successful personal injury cases behind us, we have seen such a variety of ways in which people have been injured in an accident that want their fault. And unfortunately there are still so many ways in which we just cannot tell what is round the corner, just waiting to trip us up; Or worse…

The Mirror.co.uk have reported of the amazing story of the critically injured truck driver impaled on a concealed pole (source).

Jason Ripley was delivering timber to an industrial estate and luckily driving slowly when the 8ft pole concealed by overgrown bushes bounced of the bonnet of the vehicle he was travelling in and smashed through the window before spearing his chest.
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