Our client, Ellie, was a young teenager when she sustained a traumatic brain injury which occurred after she was kicked in the head by a pony. Ellie was a regular volunteer at a stable and an experienced horse rider. On the day of the incident, she was instructed to go to one of the fields belonging to the stable and retrieve a pony that was grazing there.
Significantly, she was not provided with any safety equipment for this task and was not supervised by an adult. While leading the pony back to the stables, she encountered other ponies. One of these ponies became startled and reacted by kicking backwards. Tragically, the kick struck Ellie on the head. Ellie was knocked unconscious, and when found was taken by air ambulance to hospital. As the result of the blow to the head Ellie suffered a skull fracture and a traumatic brain injury (TBI).
How did this affect Ellie?
Ellie’s TBI resulted into a number of long-term impediments including chronic fatigue as well as behavioural and cognitive challenges. Some of these issues were not obvious from the start but became more apparent as she became an adolescent. Ellie’s behaviour at home and school started becoming increasingly more challenging and she started falling behind academically. Her mum felt that such significant changes to her behaviour were not just part of her becoming a teenager and sought support to better understand if they were linked to her TBI. Understanding whether her challenging behaviours were linked to her injury was challenging as they were not readily apparent to those who didn’t know her well or had not known her before the accident.
How did we help with her traumatic brain injury claim?
At this point her mum decided to take legal advice on whether the stables had failed in their duty to Ellie so as to explore ways of getting the support Ellie clearly needed in both her everyday life and education. We were appointed quite soon after and when Ellie was around 16 years old.
Proving liability was straightforward even though the defendant was arguing that they were not 100% at fault. After appointing a series of experts on horse (equine) behaviour and counsel on health and safety law we established that Ellie was not at fault for what happened. The biggest challenge was proving that Ellie’s changes in behaviour were linked to her equestrian injury.
Ellie had had a number of neuro cognitive assessments that all noted she had problems with concentration and emotional regulation. MRI imaging confirmed that she had changes in the frontal and temporal parts of her brain and experts confirmed that these changes were all in line with the symptoms of frontal lobe brain injury. As part of understanding Ellie’s injury to be able to put the right provision in place for her, she had several capacity assessments that found her lacking capacity to make decisions for both the litigation of her case but also the financial management of any compensation award secured. As a result, her mum remained her litigation friend even after she turned 18 and later on our Court of Protection Team [insert link] was appointed to help her manage her compensation award.
As Ellie got older her behavioural issues continued to get worse. She dropped out of sixth form college and got a job with a local nursing home. In the background we continued working with a number of experts to prove the impact the TBI had on her and were able to get an interim payment which enabled her to enter an Independent Living Trial. This made a huge difference to Ellie as she was able to have her own space and took the pressure off her family relationships. The money secured also gave Ellie the opportunity to leave her job and take a professional qualification working with small animals which is something she still does to date.
Ellie’s claim settled for just over £3 million. As she still lacks capacity to make financial decisions our Court of Protection team helps her manage her money and invests it for her making sure that she will be looked after for life. Simultaneously Ellie works part time in her job but also in raising her self-confidence and becoming more independent.
How can we help you?
At Enable Law we have a team of expert lawyers supporting people that have suffered a traumatic brain injury and their families. Our focus is on getting the help and support they need to live as full and rewarding a life as possible. We have extensive experience to include taking on challenging cases that others have rejected or run poorly. We achieve the best possible results for our clients.
If you or a loved one have suffered an injury and don’t know what to do then speaking with a member of our team will help you understand if what happened to you could have been prevented and if it is possible to pursue the matter further. We then work with you to achieve the best possible outcome, to include what rehabilitation you might benefit from. All initial discussions are free of charge and completely confidential. Should you decide to go ahead with a claim we offer flexible funding options that mean that you will never have to pay for our work out of pocket. Call us today on 0800 044 8488 or fill in our contact form so we can call you back at a time convenient to you.