By Listening to Tenant Suggestions, Building can Avoid Costly Personal Injury Claims

I hate being inconvenienced. I already have to put up with heavy traffic going to the office, long lines at the cafeteria, and long waits on the telephone. So having to wait for eighteen month for personal injury claims to finish is not something I look forward to.

It happened about two weeks ago then I slipped down a flight of slippery stairs as I was going home from work. Wanting to get some exercise, but more to avoid the long waiting queue for the elevator, I take the stairs up to my company on the eighteenth floor.

And for the six years that I have been working here, nothing untoward has happened as I zip down those stairs every afternoon.

But on one snowy day, I noticed that a windows pane had shattered to let in a particularly strong snowstorm. When I got to the ground floor on that day, I decided to take another floor down to the basement and report the incident to the maintenance manager. Not doing anything, he lazily took my report and promised to get on it when he was free. But two weeks later, the window still enabled the worst part of any snow to seep in.

Then one afternoon, the worst happened. Being in a hurry to see my daughter off to summer camp, I failed to skip a very wet step and I rolled down the stairs for what seemed to be forever.

When I finally came to rest two flights down my camera, laptop, and tablet were cracked beyond repair. And as I tried to stand up, I discovered that my electronic equipment were not the only things that were cracked. My left arm and leg were at an odd angle. And when I tried to move, extreme pain shot through them.

Still in pain, I made feeble attempts to shout for help, but instead of my normal booming voice, I only managed to croak out a few pleas. It took another hour before someone from security found me while doing his rounds. An ambulance was called and I ended up in traction.

With mounting medical bills, the loss of all my electronic equipment, and inability to come to work, I filed personal injury claims against the building. I cited the fact that I had informed the building manger of the danger posed by the broken window and that it was not attended to as promised.

Seeing that this was a cut and dried case, the building’s management settled and I received compensation to cover lost equipment and medical bills.

Had the building manager acted on my report, immediate action could have spared my being injured. The building would also have avoided costly personal injury claims. But from the way I see it, they deserved what they got because of their negligence.

Not all Personal Injury Compensation is Monetary

During one of the many building demolitions taking place around London, I found myself lying on the curb after part of a wall had collapsed on me. Instead of falling to the empty lot in the rear, it teetered before falling to the front where several bystanders were standing in.

The first thought that entered my mind as I regained consciousness was that I was in hell because everything was dark and I was experiencing the most excruciating pain I even felt in my entire life. But after a few minutes of disorientation, I realised that I was buried underneath rubble.

It took five more hours of darkness and pain before I finally heard the dogs, machines, and people digging towards my position. And it was another hour before I was finally extracted from underneath tons of steel and concrete.

During the trial covering my personal injury compensation, the lawyers for the contracting company insisted that I was fortunate to be alive and that they already did more than enough by paying for my hospitalization. And when they rested their case, they insisted that I was not entitled to anything more than what they already spent.

Thankfully I had a good lawyer and he argued that paying for my medical bills was only part of the company’s obligation. I had missed work for six months and was eventually laid off because I could not carry heavy items which formed part of my job. And as I continue to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, treatment for that should be covered as well.

My lawyer concluded that the trial was short, but I felt like it was the longest thing in the world, especially since I had to continue attending every court appearance from a wheelchair.

In the end, my lawyer was able to secure an amount equivalent to my future salary as part of my personal injury compensation. He was also able to get a budget for my post-traumatic stress disorder as well as something for my continuing therapy.

And while I do appreciate that all my bills will be covered, it is the changes that the company that was ordered to make that put me at ease.

You see, the contracting company was right about my being fortunate. I was the only survivor of the collapsed wall. Fourteen others, including a policeman, died on that fateful day. So when the court ordered changes in the way buildings are brought down, I felt good to know that lives would be saved in the future.