Whiplash, Back pain and knees pain --- Plz advice

capris

Hello, I aim is to get some advice from members. 19 Months a go my husband on his way to work in his friend's car Nissan Micra sitting in front passenger seat had an accident head on collision with another car. Third party insurance admitted the liability without any arguments. My husband suffered injuries to his both knees (due to front collision his both knees hit and went under the dashboard). After 2 days he started to suffer from whiplash (neck and shoulder pain), headaches and pain in his lower and upper back. He was off sick for 5 months, then he went back to work due to financial situations. He had and completed his physiotherapy treatments but did not work much as expected. Cut the story short my husband is still suffering with same injuries but not as worst it was initialy. His job involves shift work and worst thing is every morning he has stiff neck and would take around 30 to 40 min to get normal. Because of this he avoid doing morning shifts. He has seen specialist twice arranged by his solicitor (recently for the 2nd time) and the prognosis by the specialist is that my husband should able to recover in next 6 months. Because of his injuries he has not been able to perform his marital duties in bed as it should have been and almost every time he had to stop and discontinue due to pain in knee and back pain. My husband is thinking of ending the claim as we need money. Few days back his solicitor has written him a letter stating compensation claim in range of £4000 to £5000. My question would be is this the correct compensation amount with the kind of injuries he is still suffering and because of it our sexual life has also affected greatly. Would appreciate your help and advice. Thank you.

Parking_Trouble

Have you tried reverse cowgirl?

capris

Parking_Trouble wrote: »

Have you tried reverse cowgirl?

were you abused by your parents while you were little ? you sound very much like one of those try to put brave face but can not hide. good luck

Parking_Trouble

I come from a normal loving family.

Just trying to help resolve part of your problem that money cannot fix.

OnanTheBarbarian

I work for a personal injury law firm dealing with RTA PI.

From what you have described £4-£5k sounds a bit low and you really should look at waiting out the prognosis in case he does not recover in time and the claim becomes worth even more.

I cannot say what the claim is worth properly without having the medical evidence.

The impact on the sex life needs to be documented within the medical reports, so make sure you read them properly and pull the solicitor up on anything that is either missing or incorrect.

Injuries to neck and back that are still ongoing at 24 months have a good probability of having an element of permanence about them, but also if further investigations are carried out such as MRI scans, it could reveal an underlying problem such as degenerative problems in the spine such as disc narrowing and arthritic problems, so you could have an injury where there was trouble brewing under the surface and the accident has accelerated the onset of a problem that could have arisen in a few years.

Same goes for the knees really (they could have been on borrowed time and the accident has accelerated the problem).

This can only be determined with radiological evidence such as x-rays or MRI scans. Until these are done, it is guesswork frankly.

Usually the assessments with the independent doctors are pretty brief affairs, relying largely on questionnaire forms filled out before the appointment.

My advice would be to hold fire on settlement, ask your solicitor if they can ask for an interim payment from the other side. Any lost earnings would be claimed on top of the sum being paid for the injury compensation.

Be aware though that if further enquiries reveal a lot of the current problems are not caused by the accident (such as pre-existing medical condition) it will hamper the value of the claim if medical evidence then suggests such problems were inevitable.

A 2 year whiplash is worth upto £5k alone, so multiple injuries, especially with the knees is going to be worth a few k on top.

Did you have to provide your other half with domestic care & assistance post-accident? i.e helping to dress him, doing tasks for him etc? A claim can be made for gratuitous care & assistance at a rate of around £6.50 an hour, so let the solicitors know if this happened and give them a good idea of how many hours a week this took place for. But be realistic with what you claim to have done.