Accident Claims Suffering From Post-Traumatic Stress

In the compensation world and accident claim sphere, there is very little mention of the trauma industry, despite it happening every day.

With further investigation, accident claims for traumatic stress goes on and on. The situation is so, that over £7 billion has been awarded to victims.

Just a few examples consist of a train driver who was awarded £35,000 after a stray goat wondered onto the line.

A police mechanic won £400,000 for ‘Complex Regional Pain' syndrome after cutting two fingers and a female prison worker received a payout of £100,000 because she was ‘traumatised' after watching a mock hostage training exercise.

A university administrator asked for £800,000 for pains in her muscles after a rear-end shunt to her car and an ambulance man claimed £5,000 because he was ‘stressed' by the sight of injured people.

PTSD

All these cases revolve around a medical condition called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and runs up a bill of billions.

Alarmingly, the NHS is treating an estimated 220,000 people a year for PTSD. One website even claims that PTSD can develop from a pet dying.

Professor David Alexander, a top PTSD expert at Aberdeen's Robert Gordon University said that there are three main stages with the trauma.

"I would expect the traumatised person to be showing three core symptoms. First of all, recurrent, repetitive and deeply disturbing recollections of the incident. And then flashbacks, as if the event is being constantly replayed.

"In addition, the traumatised person will be forever scanning their environment for the next source of threat," he said.

PTSD first came to the UK in 1987, in the aftermath of the King's Cross Tube fire. However, Alexander stated that the condition is now too ‘fashionable'.

He furthered: "PTSD has become a fashionable diagnosis because it is about what the world did to you. It's not about you having to put your hand up and say I drank too much or I really am a nervous character.

"It has aspects of an alibi because it can allow you to say it's not my fault. It is the world's fault - and that attractive to us."

Post-traumatic popular

In 2008, there were more than 800,000 accident claims in Great Britain, fuelling an industry worth £7 billion a year.

PTSD compensation is not as black and white as a broken leg from a work accident, it is all in the mind, and that is much harder to prove.

Jo Pizzala, a defence lawyer, admitted that PTSD is becoming a problem and is taking away the value from genuine cases.

"I had a gentleman who was a professional driver - his bus was hit in a low-speed impact. He claimed he had PTSD from the car hitting him and that he would never work as a driver again. Nor, he claimed, would he be able to drive his own car.

"But within four months of him issuing proceedings, we had video surveillance footage of him driving."

Professor Simon Wessely also believes that PTSD is getting abused: "I think we have moved away from the original concept of PTSD and I believe the concept is now open to abuse," he said.

As a result, many experts are calling for a change and for some sort of system to be introduced, to reduce fake PTSD numbers. Doing this will be much harder that it seems.

If you need to make an accident claim, speak to one of our injury lawyer to find out how they can help.