Toes amputated after crushing accident at work

A Cornish worker who was injured when a large piece of lead fell crushing his foot has received compensation.

Arthur suffered his injuries whilst he was employed as a Fettler. His job involved finishing boat keels after they had been removed from their moulds. Once the keels have been taken out of the moulds the lead residue around the keel needs to be removed. This is normally undertaken by a JCB digger.

On the day of Arthur's accident the JCB was unavailable and so he and his colleague had to use another method of knocking the lead out. This was done with poles and hammers. They began to knock the lead off. They did not appear to be removing much of the lead with the poles so Arthur decided to obtain a larger one. As he returned to dig out more of the lead, a large lump suddenly fell, landing on his foot.

"He was wearing steel toecap boots at the time of his accident," said Andrew Stinchcombe specialist accidents at work solicitor, "but the lead dropped with such force that the toecap curled under and crushed his toes."

"The pain was so intense that Arthur collapsed and was taken to the local hospital where his foot was operated on that night and his toe pinned."

"He had sustained a severe crush injury. For the following weeks he was unable to feel his toes due to the amount of bruising and swelling. Eventually his toes turned black and they were fears that he may loose half of his foot."

"The Defendants argued for a long time that Arthur had contributed to the accident but in fact he was just following the procedures that they had put into place. They finally conceded and we were able to secure Arthur £32,000 in compensation."

Arthur has had specialist hyperbaric treatment, which involved being placed in a decompression chamber to allow pure oxygen to get to the bodies extremities and aid healing. This has meant that he has not lost his foot although his second toe has been amputated.

The good news is that after 8 months he is back to work and with specially made shoes he can carry on his life as normal.

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