YouClaim are here to help after a construction accident

Paul Stanfield (20) from Leeds is a young construction worker who was involved in a construction accident in July 2004 and suffered serious burns in when using galvanising equipment.

He had only been in his job a few months and hadn't been properly trained when senior staff put him to work on a galvanising task.

The work involved lowering material into a galvanising bath using ropes on pulleys, and his team workers thought that as it was relatively simple he wouldn't have too much trouble doing it.

Paul didn't want to ask for help as he wanted to show that he was sufficiently capable and competent to do the job he was being asked to do and didn't realise that it was within his rights to ask for better training.

Although he was given some safety equipment, including protective gloves, goggles and a hard hat, with strict instructions to wear them when he was galvanising, he wasn't given proper instruction on what to do in the event of a problem lowering the material into the bath. He didn't realise the possibility of suffering serious personal injuries in a construction accident and so got on with the task at hand.

At times, the unit to lower the material into the galvanising bath became unhooked on one side (it needed to be lowered down on both sides). Paul was told that if this happened, he should let the unit go into the galvanising bath, let the material immerse and then re-hook the unit when it came back up.

During immersion for galvanising, moisture can get trapped resulting in trapped water and molten metal explosion. One day, the unit got unhooked and immediately after immersion, Paul tried to re-hook it.

Re-hooking turned out to be more fiddly than he thought and he temporarily took off his protective goggles to see more clearly. Just as he did this, an eruption of molten zinc burst on to his arms, face and hands.

Paul was rushed to hospital and luckily found that his eyes were not affected by the explosion. His face, arms and hands, however, had suffered serious burn injuries. Paul contacted YouClaim and our panel of personal injury solicitors pursued an industrial construction accident claim which didn't cost Paul a single penny.

They managed to get him £7,000 compensation for disfiguring burns to his face, neck and hands and like all other YouClaim customers, all damages awarded went directly to Paul.

Industrial accident compensation
Young workers often get injured in industrial accidents because they are not properly trained. The construction industry loses millions of pounds each year as a result of occupational injuries and diseases and some individuals never work again because of the personal injuries they've sustained.

The majority of workers never pursue compensation - fewer than one in ten workplace ill-health or construction accident victims receive any compensation at all. The annual compensation bill is less than ten % of the cost of occupational injuries and disease suffered by workers.

Workers who have been hurt because of a workplace situation have a right to make a compensation claim. Their employer may be liable if they have not taken adequate measures to protect their employees.

That's where YouClaim can help. We'll never charge you a single penny for helping you to make a construction accident compensation claim and you can even keep 100 % of any damages awarded.

To find out more, chat online to an advisor, fill in the online form to request a call back or ring us now on 0800 10 757 95.