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Did you experience a leg, knee, or foot injury that has significantly impacted your daily life? Injuries like these can dramatically affect your work, your freedom to move, and your ability to enjoy life. Pursuing and receiving rightful compensation can alleviate some of these hardships, ensuring you get the proper medical treatment and have peace of mind to concentrate on your recovery. This way, you can return to doing what you love sooner.
Many individuals fully recover from leg injuries, but having a financial safety net from a successful compensation claim can make the road to regaining your strength less strenuous. This is especially true when your claim is managed by skilled personal injury lawyers.
Smiths Lawyers are committed to assisting clients with leg injury compensation claims. They understand the physical, emotional and financial toll that leg injuries can cause, and are there to help you navigate through this difficult time.
The Prevalence of Different Types of Leg Injury Claims
While every leg injury might not seem severe enough to warrant a personal injury compensation claim, it’s vital to get advice from a specialist personal injury lawyer who can assess your unique situation. Keep in mind that the degree of disruption to your life and the level of compensation you may be entitled to isn’t always linked to the perceived severity of the injury.
Even seemingly minor injuries, such as ankle sprains, toe injuries, or bruises, could have serious implications on your day-to-day routine. Our team of empathetic and expert personal injury lawyers understand these nuances and are prepared to discuss your case thoroughly, providing you with top-notch legal guidance.
According to The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, fractures are the most frequently reported injuries in hospitalisation cases, underlying the prevalence of compensation claims made for leg fractures, including broken feet or ankles. These fractures can result from various causes, such as trauma from a fall or a motor vehicle crash, osteoporosis, or repeated stress on the bone. We’ll delve further into the different types of leg fractures in the following section.
Examining the Various Types of Leg Fracture Injuries
It’s crucial to note that leg injury compensation claims are not solely based on injuries involving major leg bones such as the femur, tibia, and fibula. Injuries to the knee, ankle, toes, and other smaller bones can be equally disruptive, forming a significant portion of leg injury compensation claims.
1. Compound or Comminuted Fracture
A bone break is categorised as a compound or “open” fracture when the fractured bone pierces through the skin. This type of injury also leads to soft tissue damage and intense pain and discomfort. Compound fractures carry the risk of infection due to skin penetration, potentially leading to severe outcomes such as leg amputation.
A comminuted fracture, on the other hand, involves the bone shattering into multiple pieces. If you have suffered this type of injury to your leg, knee, or ankle, it likely has resulted in soft tissue damage and significantly impacted your mobility. The compensation payout for these types of fractures tends to be higher, though it is subject to the specifics of the case.
2. Displaced Fracture
A displaced fracture refers to the condition when a broken bone separates into pieces. This type of leg injury is quite serious and often accompanies soft tissue damage and severe pain.
3. Stress Fracture
A stress fracture represents a unique kind of break where cracks appear in one or more leg bones, but the bone remains intact. These fractures can be harder to detect due to their nature and might go unnoticed in routine medical examinations such as x-rays. Despite this, stress fractures can have significant implications if left untreated over a period of time.
Evaluating the Potential Compensation Amount for Leg Injury Claims
Knowing the value of your leg injury compensation legal claim can be complex, and it’s best to seek guidance from a lawyer who has expertise in this area. The compensation you might receive for a leg injury is determined by several aspects.
These include:
- The severity of your injury: This pertains to how serious your injury is and how it impacts your daily routine and overall lifestyle.
- Your recovery journey: This involves your expected recovery time, whether there will be any long-term effects like limited movement or weakness, and the amount of medical help or therapy you’ll require.
- The effect of the injury on your life and work: How has your injury disrupted your life and hampered your capacity to work?
- Your financial losses: This includes the medical expenses you’ve already paid and those you’ll likely incur in the future, such as medication costs, hospital bills, and fees for doctors and specialists.
- Lost income: This refers to the wages or self-employment job you’ve lost during your recovery and any you stand to lose in the future.
- Other financial losses: Any other financial setbacks you’ve suffered due to your injury.
- The pain and suffering endured due to your leg injury: This is a reflection of the physical and emotional distress caused by your injury.
In some cases, you might also be able to claim damages for ‘psychological injury’. Severe leg injuries can lead to loss of mobility, limit your social and recreational activities, and impact your ability to enjoy family life. This can result in depression or other mental health issues. If you develop these problems due to your injury, you may be entitled to compensation for them, in addition to your physical injuries.