Man Seeks Compensation for 30ft Fall

Posted on Jul 02, 2009 
 

A man is seeking personal injury compensation after a 30ft fall during an illegal rave left him in a coma for 3 weeks. 
 
26 year old Andrew Henley, a former shop fitter from Milton, Staffordshire, came very close to death and took nearly a year to recover after he fell from a bridge on to a disused railway in fields in Keele on 1st October 2006.  
 
Emergency services had to use 4x4 vehicles to get to Mr Henley because the accident site was 100 yards from the nearest road.  
 
Mr Henley's injuries led to him being in a coma for 3 weeks and have left him with a short temper, a lack of motivation and permanent damage to his arms. His injuries included a fractured skull, a broken tibia, four broken ribs and damage to his elbows. When he came round from his coma, he was unable to walk or talk, couldn't remember the accident and was unable to recognise his own father.  
 
Mr Hanley cannot remember much about what happened but was with his girlfriend in Hanley when they heard rumours that a rave was happening.  
 
When they arrived at the site, Mr Henley said that: "The path to the rave was marked out with glowsticks, but some of them had been nicked. You had to go over the tunnel to get down, but because it was so dark I went straight over the hedge and fell on to the railway line."  
 
His injuries required Mr Henley to undergo seven and a half months of rehabilitation and although he tried returning to work he was made redundant after just a few months. Andrew explains that his injuries have made it difficult to find new employment:  
 
"I only have about 25 degrees of movement in my arms, meaning I can't really stretch for things. But the main problems have been the mental effects. It's affected my memory so I can't remember things, and I've lost a lot of my motivation. It's been a very long journey to get to this point. I feel like I lost everything and I had to start all over again."  
 
His father, Peter, has also noticed a dramatic change in his personality:  
 
"It was like he had a different personality. He's really bad tempered now, and he never used to be like that. I was told that we could have lost him in the first three days."  
 
The site of the accident is now secured by fencing and is padlocked but it was not like that at the time and so Mr Henley's solicitor is starting to build a case for accident compensation. However, it is unclear at the moment who exactly owns the land and who is liable.