News £500,000 Payout For Museum Boss Over Mental Trauma

[Deleted member 20280]

Quite frankly words fail me. Having suffered with "Chondromalacia patellae" for nearly 25 years now. Although being an extremely common knee injury believe me when my knee actually "Goes" it can be excruciatingly painful to say the least. I have needed surgery to rectify my injury and am required to take medication for pain nearly every "walking" day I live. I have been left in abject agony when my knee has gone in the past, to the point of tears streaming down my face. My specialists diagnosis is that eventually my knee will become so painful even to get out of bed that when I am older I will need a walking aid for the rest of my life and maybe even require a wheelchair at some point as it is a degenerative disorder of one of the main functioning joints known to ma. I don't for one second think that I should get any form of compensation for my PTSD let alone a "painful knee joint".

No I do not think her ?injury deserves compensation let alone that kind of level of compensation. £500k for an injury that
a) is treatable, b) non life threatening, and c) will not stop her working as a result.

PTSD is yes a) treatable (after prolonged therapy), b)life threatening, oh and c) can stop a sufferer from working.

So correct me if I am wrong.

If I dislocate my "knee, or kneecap" I can expect compensation but if I survive some of the most horrific trauma's a human being can not only suffer at the time of the attack on my person, or survive being present at a life-threatening event so traumatic that I suffer a lifetime of flashbacks. I do not in the slightest belittle her pain and suffering at injuring her knee but!. PTSD !! well we all have our opinions, for me .... NO criterion A has not been met and if it has, I guess every one of us on here has a claim and should consult a Lawyer straight away.... Oh I forget myself, there are many of us who cannot afford one. Unlike the lady who slips and hurts her knee, who worked for the Natural History Museum at the time (no doubt on a very tasty salary at the time).

Lets all jump on the "Where there's a blame there's a claim" band-wagon shall we..

Rant over.

 

[Deleted member 20280]

Oh and whilst I am ranting "Mental Trauma" waiting for an Ambulance. With all those kind hearted passers by stopping to comfort her whilst she waited for an Ambulance to treat her! Where was our kind hearted passer by when we were suffering ? ? ?

In a phrase "Get a Life" You hurt your knee and an Ambulance came and helped you, you were treated by them as first responders and then at A&E by the second responders, no doubt made a nice cup of tea by a nice nurse in a nice uniform whilst the real sufferers of PTSD in the world sobbed themselves to broken sleep in a nightmare life that for some of them continued for many many years.

Think yourself lucky lady all you did was twist your bl**dy knee. Its not like you were hiking in the Cairngormes alone and a passer by just happened to stumble upon you after three days of laying there freezing cold and close to death. No you twisted your knee on a packed commuter bus where there were lots of people around to comfort and help you in the middle of London.

 

[Hashi]

It's the PTSD T-shirt that's really getting to me. If we're going to have a trail blazer for PTSD awareness... is this really the right person?

I do take Venusian's comments on board because I think the media is nonsense, but given my reasons for that I automatically filter out all the neighbour/bystander/eyewitness comments and the past history and the this and that. When I see the same bare bones reported by the BBC as by the Daily Mail, and by everyone else, it does lead me to think there probably isn't much more to this story that would make me feel differently.

@laurie71, she says she's unable to work again because of her symptoms including dissociative seizures. Dissociative seizures was a new one on me, but hey, I'm just someone with PTSD. What do I know? Apparently not very much or I'd also have half a million in my bank account.

That and the whole ambulance thing... it just smacks so much of litigiousness (spelling?) and looking round for where to get money from now this has happened. Maybe some people in other countries are more used to a culture of litigation, I don't know, but here I think for some of us - well, at least for me - there's a whole context which makes this feel really uncomfortable. The context for me at least is: the NHS is over-stretched, we all know that. However annoyed we may get with rude receptionists and four minute GP appointments for which we've sat through a ninety minute delay, I at least think the emergency service is really trying to do the best it can. And I appreciate the fact that - along the lines of @laurie71's post, we have an emergency service. Which is - as I understand it - quite effective at prioritising who it responds to first.

Maybe the length of the delay was a fault of the ambulance service and could have been avoided. Does that still justify them having to pay half a mill? I think someone else has already suggested something along these lines - what percentage of her mental stress/physical distress was during the expected waiting time, I wonder, and what percentage was outside it? I think that should have been calculated, if the stress/distress and the delay were the issue. Othewise citing the delay makes no sense.

The fact that she didn't sue the bus company implies that nothing particular happened to cause her kneecap to dislocate. So do the news reports. I'd be very interested to know the story behind a kneecap that can dislocate itself so painfully at nothing more than boarding a bus, and whether - if that was the condition of her kneecap - it was advisable to be boarding buses?

But let's get to the point. Kneecap goes, problems ensue, it can't be blamed on the bus company so... who can she sue... ? To pick the ambulance service, and to cite what was actually a relatively short delay (it wasn't as if they never turned up at all, or left it for three days)... it's very problematic.

Do you think I should tell her that most people think PTSD symptoms can be managed, and some even think you can recover from them altogether? Should I have told the judge?

 

[Hashi]

I hope she reads this thread. If she has a PTSD diagnosis, she's eligible to join the forum and have her own say here.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Dissociative seizures are non-epileptic seizures, pure and simple, (thank you, google) and as far as I can tell, they're not related to dissociation as you and I know it. That is, she has seizures. She isn't dissociating like you and I are dissociating. Using the term dissociative seizures makes it sound so much more up old ptsd's alley rather than saying non-epileptic seizures.

Am I the only one who doubts her diagnosis altogether? Most of us want to be normal. Most of us don't want to be a walking billboard for this damn disorder! And why? Because it's sidelined us enough as it is. I think she found the PTSD gravy train and decided to ride it for all it's worth. And if I'm wrong, then I think she's the biggest idiot---that is, she's doing this for the pity, so everyone can feel sorry for her. No, she doesn't deserve my empathy because I've heard WAY too many stories of those who have endured severe trauma. Honestly, I think she's pathetic for garnering sympathy for a fake PTSD diagnosis after (GASP!) having to wait a few more minutes for an ambulance!

I've never said this to a sufferer, but since I don't think she's a sufferer, I'll say it. B!tch, suck it up. People have been through much worse than you. Waiting 15 extra minutes for a damn ambulance entitles you to nothing!

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Ok, I re-read the article. It just made me even more mad lol.

Why were the paramedics late? Were they busy with another accident? Far away on a previous call? Had engine trouble? This judge is saying that paramedics must have super human powers and be at the scene within X amount of time or they're liable? That sounds like crap to me, even from a legal standpoint as it opens up paramedics to litigation when they can't get to an injured party in X amount of time when there are circumstances out of their control. That is, this case set a bad precedent which future cases may follow. ie a legal nightmare.

I fail to see criterion A. She broke her knee. Lots of people break bones. I have a feeling that she may have had REAL criterion A trauma in her past and just blamed it all on this, which is actually just the trigger.

 

[Lucycat]

Dissociative seizures are non-epileptic seizures, pure and simple, (thank you, google) and as far as I can tell, they're not related to dissociation as you and I know it.

I know there are members on here who have non-eplieptic seizures and I don't want to dismiss them or offend anyone. However when I was a student these were called 'pseudoseizures' and for a very good reason. They are not in the control of the sufferer but are entirely psychological in nature so can be successfully treated with psychotherapy ( and placebos). For this lady to have had a non-epileptic seizure during the hearing was very convenient ( and I am sure - convincing). I really hope the ambulance service challenge the award - but I doubt if they can afford to.

That is, this case set a bad precedent which future cases may follow. ie a legal nightmare.

This worries me too. How much per minute delay per condition/diagnosis can we expect to see as the standard? Who sets the 'target' times? If she lived in a rural community ( as I do in Scotland) it would not be unusual to wait far longer due to the geography, weather landslides and single track roads. yes - they get a helicopter in for a life-threatening priority, but not for a poorly knee.

 

[tillybee]

@Lucycat I too worry about media coverage. I don't want PTSD to become a compensation trend. It belittles the work of @anthony for example. I also worry about further stigma being generated.