Ryan was a self-employed construction worker when he fell from height, sustaining a catastrophic brain injury.
Ryan’s case
The legal situation was challenging, with several potential defendants, some of whom denied liability and were uninsured. While his case was being explored, Ryan was left with limited support for himself and his family, including a lack of funding for bespoke treatment.
Since he’d been self-employed, Ryan’s family were having to cope without his income. His family were also struggling to come to terms with his life-changing injuries.
How we helped
Given the family’s financial situation, we used our own emergency fund to provide wraparound support for Ryan and his family. We arranged an independent benefits assessment, with a view to relieving some of the family’s money worries and funded an initial needs assessment to explore recommendations for future support and rehabilitation for Ryan.
We also explored psychological support for Ryan’s family and set up a taxi account so they could visit him in hospital.
Understanding Ryan’s condition and care plan was vital to his family, so our rehabilitation and support coordinators provided support by explaining everything and liaising with the treating team. They also attended the multi-disciplinary team meetings at the hospital to help the family to understand what was happening.
Because of the challenging legal situation, we obtained statements from key witnesses to the incident.
We also worked closely with the Health and Safety Executive, to keep the investigation moving.
