Personal injury risks in a new job


This is an emotional moment for me, as I'm writing what is probably the last personal injury article I'll have to do before switching to a new job. I'm sad to leave, as I've learned a lot in the past few years, and made good friends in the team of people who'll be keeping me up to date with the developments in no win, no fee compensation news and personal pieces like this.

One of those friends, in fact, thought it would be fun to remind me that there were still forty-eight hours in which I could suffer an ironic work accident in a firm that handles the compensation claims for such things. Half-way through those two days and I'm safe so far. Touch wood.

But I'm off to a university in my new role, and a spot of research will show that this is not a sector entirely free of accident injury risks. Take the iconic moment of graduates throwing their hats in the air - a Daily Mail article from last year found one university where the practice has been banned for fear of head injury resulting from the pointy corners striking people painfully. One person was reported to have suffered a head wound that required stitches and a hospital visit before the ban was in place.

Like any business, there's going to be a range of potential risks that may face me; slippery stairs on wet days, perhaps, or filing cabinets with a tendency to snap closed on people without warning. It's too soon to tell. But, also like any business, they are bound to have a risk assessment document in place so that there'll be handy codes to keep me safe from them all. Hurrah!

It's quite a range of potential accident injury types that could feature on a comprehensive risk assessment, beyond the standard slip, trip and fall types of incident. There's a science department, so there are going to be exciting toxins and temperatures to dodge. It's a city centre university, so there's exposure to car accidents, bus accidents, and even train crashes on the commute in (not that you'd call that a work accident, really).

The sporting activities will open up a variety of exciting chances to suffer personal injury too; I'm yet to discover if the employees can join in with the students, but even if not there are always stories of sports fans being bounced into by over-exuberant athletes.

An American student even managed to bring a medical negligence claim against her university over the clinic's misdiagnosis of the 'superbug' she was suffering from, which eventually caused her to lose an arm.

Fortunately, universities are also where the research into new treatments for fixing the results of personal injury happens - and if I do get to miss the details of compensation claims too much, I can always visit the law department, right?

Can I claim?