Hospital Employee Awarded $300,000 After Workplace Eye Injury.

8 September 2023

Injury and Rehabilitation, Workers Compensation

Bryan* worked in a hospital and was known as a cheerful, outgoing guy who took pride in brightening the lives of the patients he cared for. A shocking workplace accident changed everything in an instant, and he’s still reeling from the consequences.

Part of Bryan’s job included moving oxygen tanks and refreshing them for patients. Oxygen tanks need to be checked regularly to make sure the pressure doesn’t build up, something that he’d been doing for years without issue. The hospital had never run any training on how to identify signs that there was a pressure build up. They also didn’t provide any safety gear for employees carrying out these checks.

“This was something that I’d done a thousand times, a hundred-thousand times,” Bryan explains. “I had absolutely no idea something like this could happen.”

During a routine check, one of the valves exploded. The pressure had built up and blew shrapnel straight into Bryan’s face and neck. He was rushed to emergency, but the surgeon couldn’t save Bryan’s right eye.

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Bryan can no longer do the things that he loves. He can’t work, reading is a challenge, and he’s plagued by headaches and ongoing pain. His facial scarring has made him deeply self-conscious, depressed, and anxious. He can’t spend time in the sun, and he struggles to look at screens.

He had been living on his own before the accident, but even every day tasks became a struggle. Bryan ended up moving in with his sister’s family while he recovered.

“A friend put me onto Law Partners. She really helped me out there,” he says.

Bryan learned that he was eligible to make a workers compensation claim. We found that the hospital hadn’t identified the oxygen tanks on any of their risk assessments, so their negligence, coupled with Bryan’s whole person impairment rating of 24% meant that his solicitor was able to pursue a strong case.

The final settlement came to just over $300,000 to compensate Bryan for his lost income, which has allowed him to live independently once more. It will also help support him until his retirement, which was factored into the settlement.

“I’m finally starting to feel like myself again,” Bryan says now. “Law Partners helped me do that.”

*Name has been changed to protect our client’s identity