It’s a matter of balance; without toes, due to amputation or with a toe injury it is much harder to stay upright, change direction when you are running and walking or wear most close fitting footwear. A toe injury puts you at a discernable physical disadvantage whilst it heals and if it is a serious injury, perhaps disables you for the rest of your life. Your injury might cause you to experience acute pain, inflammation and involuntary immobilisation if walking becomes too painful. It might also trigger the premature onset of arthritis.
Frustration and bitterness can understandably bubble up in such circumstances and especially if you know with certainty that you weren’t responsible for the accident that caused your toe injury in the first place. Considering make a claim for compensation might, in those circumstances, provide a method of at least partially psychologically healing the trauma. Such a course is open to you whether or not your injury was relatively minor such as bruising, spraining, dislocation, jamming or a Subungual Haematoma (bleeding under the toenail) or serious enough, as with a severe crushing injury, to require the amputation of one or more toes.
Toes are, due to their location on the body exposed to hazards, especially in workplaces such as factories, warehouses, kitchens and even offices where crushing, impact and puncture injuries can occur if an employer fails to discharge their duty of care to their employees, giving rise to a potential accident compensation claim. They might fail by not making the working environment a safe one, by not training and informing their employees of potential work hazards and providing them with the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE). If your accident occurred in commercial premises other than your workplace, the owner of the premises also has a duty of care under the Occupiers Liability Act. A toe injury claim might also be made against a sporting opponent who, because of recklessness or deliberate intent, caused injury to one or more of your toes.
A specialist compensation claim solicitor will be able to evaluate all the information pertaining to your accident and injury, including the all important medical reports and the prognosis and advise you as to whether or not a toe injury claim would be arguable.
Although most of the medical treatments available for toe injuries are of a non surgical nature, the injured toe(s) might have to be held in position with splints or a plaster cast making walking or wearing your normal footwear impossible. Additionally, toe injuries can be slow to heal with toenails lost due to a Subungual Haematoma taking up to thirteen weeks to grow back and fractures requiring two months to heal and during that period pain and discomfort might be almost constant. Your solicitor will know exactly how to get hold of the most accurate and detailed medical reports on your injury possible. It will be those reports and your solicitor’s skills in negotiation that will secure the best possible compensation claim award for your injury.
Tim Bishop is senior partner of specialist compensation claim solicitors, Bonallack and Bishop. For more information about how to claim compensation claim, visit their specialist website at http://www.how-to-claim-compensation.co.uk or phone them directly on 01722 422300.
Tim Bishop
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