Video Transcript: Simon’s Story
From new job to spinal injury
Simon Small, client
I worked in the food industry. I was a technical manager in charge of quality and legality. I’d just got myself a new job three months previously. Everything was looking rosy and positive, and on the up.
I took a slightly longer Easter break. I felt oddly lethargic, and I just thought it was physical tiredness, possibly mental tiredness, because of starting a new job. I went to the doctor that afternoon and explained what had happened so far. She deemed it to be muscular, as I’d thought it was. I was told everything would be fine, that I should get better over the weekend. My biggest concern was whether I’d be ready to go back on Monday.
The pain got progressively worse, to the point where I was almost screaming by the Saturday night. So on Sunday I phoned 111, and they made an appointment for me at the local community hospital. He too felt it was just very severe muscular pain, gave me some more medication and told me to see my regular GP the following day, on the Monday. He said I’d probably torn something quite badly, but it would start to pick itself up once the medication kicked in. I had no reason to think it was anything else.
I went home that night. I felt delirious, I felt disconnected. I didn’t feel I was in myself. I went to bed early, and when I woke up the next morning I couldn’t move my legs. They were completely paralysed, and I’d lost control of my bladder.
I spent eight weeks in general hospital as an inpatient. They operated on me several times. They explained that I’d had an abscess in the vertebrae in my neck, caused by staph aureus. As it had grown, the pus from the abscess had put pressure on my spinal cord, and that pain I’d felt, from the very original nub to the napalm-like feel, was that pressure on my spinal cord killing off the nerves.
A delay in diagnosis
Dr James Piers, clinical negligence partner, Anthony Gold Solicitors
Simon was a client of mine. I helped him with a case based around a delay in diagnosis of a spinal infection, a spinal epidural abscess, which sadly, as a result of that delay, has left him with some permanent spinal injuries, injuries which otherwise probably ought to have led to a full, or more or less full, recovery.
Clients will often have approached lawyers with an inkling that something’s not right. Looking at that in greater detail, ultimately, that means the client feels a professional has let them down in some way.
Coming to terms with the diagnosis
Simon Small, client
The finality of my situation really hadn’t landed at all. And I suddenly looked at it, and sitting in that, it all came out. It all came out, how serious and how bad things were, and I just crumbled.
My condition doesn’t necessarily prevent me doing something, but if I do, and it puts strain or stress on my muscles, on my body, I’ll be virtually immobile for two to three days afterwards. It doesn’t really make me a very employable proposition. So I feel slightly robbed of that opportunity. I didn’t quite realise how much, subconsciously, I was on pause until the last few months, so I’m looking forward to making up for lost time.
Anthony Gold have given me hope, they’ve given me support, and they’ve given me as good a life back as I could possibly hope for.
Rebuilding a life
Dr James Piers, clinical negligence partner, Anthony Gold Solicitors
The case was difficult, but what’s fantastic to see now is sitting in Simon’s home and seeing that all those uncertainties and worries have gone. I saw a client in Simon who, to me, frankly, was struggling more and more the longer I knew him, because it was getting harder. It would be nice to see how things work out for him in the longer term, but it’s fantastic to see already that he’s in a much better place than he was.
Simon Small, client
I’ve been able to enjoy every day when I get up, just getting back to living life. I feel really hopeful.
Dr James Piers, clinical negligence partner, Anthony Gold Solicitors
What I do is fascinating work that’s incredibly rewarding. It’s a huge responsibility, and again, it might sound cliché, but it’s a great privilege to be able to act for clients like Simon.
Simon Small, client
I haven’t, for the first time in as long as I can remember, got anything to worry about.
Interviewer
Is that a good feeling then?
Simon Small, client
You have no idea. You have no idea. I couldn’t explain it.
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