Finding My Way After a Traumatic Accident (and Dealing with Bureaucracy Along the Way)

In August 2019, I died.

I cannot tell you what happened, from my perspective I went into and out of the light a few times on an odyssey of my own. For everyone else, I suffered catastrophic and life-changing injuries when the driver behind me fell asleep at the wheel on the motorway. Then proceeded to collect me while sitting on a motorcycle, and crush me between their vehicle and the vehicle in front of me.

My immediate injuries would include 11 vertebrae with various fractures to their body, posterior elements, traverse process fractures, and loss of height. Several broken ribs. Intra-abdominal haematoma, right lung bruised, left lung punctured and collapsed, requiring a chest drain. Laceration to the skull, and… well, my medical records are extensive and still ongoing as of writing. I would soon be in a coma, intubated, and on mechanical ventilation.

Approximately two weeks after the accident, I would return to this world from my odyssey. That is when the learning curve went vertical. It would be almost five months before I could walk unaided, but I could walk. My lungs are only at half of pre-accident capacity, among a litany of other ongoing issues.

That is just to give you context of where my family and I are coming from. This event had happened, and we had no idea where to turn for help. We did not even know which doors to knock on. Even today, almost 4 years later, we are still discovering things we could have used from day one. I want to lay out here some services and things we wish we knew about. Maybe some of this may help anyone who finds themselves dealing with surviving after an accident.

The Next Day

The world kept turning. My family had to juggle a lot while I hooked-up to life support. The Gardaí had taken all my personal belongings for evidence. Therefore, anything to access my banking or funds was completely unreachable. Consider that for a moment, especially if you are the primary earner. The accident occurred in the final days of the month, which for us meant that all the bills would be going out at the start of the next month. I left my family in the lurch. It would be weeks before my phone and wallet would be returned to me. First, I had to survive and wake-up. I have two-factor authentication set-up on everything that allows it, but nobody could get access without my device. Only I knew where the recovery codes were kept. This was not ideal.

In the hospital, there was a Social Worker on staff. This person worked wonders for my partner. The social worker provided letters to kick-start the process for supports, just a guiding hand when the world was crashing down around my family.

In addition, our family GP helped with providing necessary certs needed to apply for benefits too.

There is (currently) no section on Citizens Information for “I have suffered a life-changing injury and not sure how we will survive the aftermath”. For us, the first stop was Illness Benefit. This is only a short-term fix, though, and it all takes time to go through the process of getting approved.

After getting out of hospital 2 months later, there was no easy way to deal with Intreo or access everything online without having a Public Services Card. Nor do they do a service to come out to your home if you, say, suffer a serious spinal injury. My partner had to haul me into the interviews and appointments in the Intreo offices to get the card sorted. If you do not have a Public Services Card, it is worth spending some time getting that sorted, you really need it.

Once I had the Public Services Card, it made online access easier. To an extent. In hindsight, what we have learned is everything really comes down to budgets. By that, I mean, get used to getting many application denied letters. Lots. At the start, we got denial after denial, and just thought we were not entitled to anything or doing something wrong. In my case, I was denied the disability and invalidity payments. As was my partner, denied carers supports, even though I completely relied on her for virtually all of my care following discharge. We are still denied Medical Cards.

Then we were told we were doing it wrong. We were not appealing. We got this advice from those who had gone through similar experiences as us. What I learned is that it can be the appeal stage before a medical professional will look at your application. This became clear when we started to see the appeal findings.

Our case always seemed clear-cut, but each time we had to go through the process of application, denial, and appeal. In each case, the total time took in the region of 7 months to go through those motions. Think about that. Your household income is slashed to a 1/5th of what it was. Your partner is trying to care for you, work part-time, raise a family, bills, and a million other things all on their own.

Appeal.

Appeal.

Appeal.

It is all we really had left at that stage that we were aware of. It was, and still is, soul crushing and exhausting. Nevertheless, it is the system we have, but I am not sure if it is the system we deserve. It is all about not giving up at the first hurdle.

Recently, I have only learned of something called Disablement Benefit. It is available if you “suffer a loss of physical or mental faculty because of an accident at work, an accident travelling directly to or from work, or a prescribed disease contracted at work”. Who knew? Currently, under review.

Law & Disorder

This whole experience has been a crash course, pun intended, in how our legal system works. Spoiler warning: it is not like you see on TV. I will start with my observations of the criminal system first.

Essentially, the Garda will do the initial investigation. It took the Garda one week short of the 6 month cut-off to charge the driver in my case. Then it is the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) who decide if there is enough to go to court. However, in my case it first went to the District Court, where the Judge decided the case was too serious to be heard. The case was then referred to the Circuit Court.

If you would like to learn more about how the courts work in Ireland, I would recommend starting with this: How the Courts Work| The Court Service of Ireland.

In this case where liability was admitted, and the other party pleaded guilty, it took 2 years and 4 months from accident to conviction. Which was a 4-year driving ban, 6-months suspended sentence, and €500 fine. In all that time, the driver of the other vehicle carried on with their life completely as normal. On the day of the accident, they even got to go home after just a breathalyser test. In comparison, while I was fighting for my life in A&E my blood samples were taken, and I was cautioned by the Gardai (according to the Garda statement).

Everything about the system seemed designed to disappoint. Just like the experiences with social welfare, it all comes down to budgets and money. On the final hearing in court for the criminal case, the Garda overseeing my case was there in court to provide evidence. That morning, there was only one other Garda available for duty. There had already been 3 crashes on the M4 motorway that morning on their stretch, and all the other demands on a Garda station on a Monday morning in a townland with over 25,000 people. This is not like TV, nobody would believe it if it was.

Also note that your civil solicitor can do nothing to influence or get information on the criminal case. All information comes from the Gardai. You will need to chase, and push, and keep on top of things yourself. Find the local Garda Victim Service office who may help with this and your case number.

The criminal process has nothing to do with whatever civil case may arise. They are two entirely different beasts. No matter how grievous the crime, or the admitted guilt, the Civil case has its life. From day one, the pressure is on you to reduce the liability on the insurance company. If you could do anything for cheaper but do not, then you have opened up another area of scrutiny. They have the means and the ability to get you the best medical care, and to get you in front of those experts next week.

They will not. They do not have to.

To me, this attitude is bereft of empathy or supports for victims. It feels like they want you to suffer, fail, and ideally to die somewhere along the way to court with something that has been overlooked while you sit on an HSE waiting list. Because, in fairness, my life is worth less if I died. They will pay the investigators to follow you, knock on your neighbours doors, and get images and videos showing you at your best. They will also pay to send you to the best medical professionals to assist their defence. I would think that in an ideal system, the medical professionals should never know who sent you there for assessment to avoid “diagnosis for hire”.

Prepare yourself for a long, drawn out conflict that is going to take years to resolve. My single best advice is to ask around and get the best legal representation. Shortcuts here will damn you down the road, you only get to fight your case once. Recent changes also mean the defence can gain access to ALL your post-accident records [click here], they work hard investigating how to reduce their liability. I would have though getting me healthy would be the right path to take.

The first stage of the Civil process for me was the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB). Great website, loads of information, and the average processing time for a claim when I started was 8 months. It is there to stop everyone wasting time and money with the courts.

22 months after starting the process, they sent me an authorisation to go to court. Essentially, my case was too complicated for PIAB to assess. They somehow needed 22 months and several medical experts to figure that out.

Then the Civil process begins. That is where I find myself at the time of writing this. Waiting for motions, a hearing, a trial, after which there could be further appeals, and on, and on.

This is with liability admitted. Of course, the insurers must work hard to counter fraudulent claims. That said, when they admit liability on day one, I do believe a different, less confrontational recovery focused process should kick-in. Otherwise, what does it mean to admit liability if you are not going to help with the recovery?

“Anybody can become angry. But to be angry… at the right time and for the right purpose is not within everybody’s power.”

Aristotle

Discover Local – It Saved Our Life

The first 3 years have been the hardest. Recovery and adjustment was the big picture goal, but it was difficult to see an end to it much of that time. We had lost everything, but were managing to keep things together. Together with the medical rehabilitation and the effects that it was having on us. We were constantly going through the process of the social services, criminal system, PIAB and the civil system, it was just difficult to see any good in any of it. It is also probably for the best nobody told me at the start that this process of recovery and adjustment was going to take several years. It would have been impossible to face that at the start.

Finances were an absolute nightmare. Yes. To be honest, the banks were some of the easiest to work with. We went into our local branch soon after discharge from hospital to explain the change in circumstances. Which started us going down the process of being placed into debt management schemes, every 3 months there would be reviews and audits of the finances, and plans either renewed or amended. Numerous scary warnings about if you did not work with them, it could end with bailiff’s at the door, but we have been lucky that it has not come to that. Yet. The best advice here is to be straight with them, work the plan, and keep engaging. It was a real benefit being able to walk into a branch and talk to someone, that cannot be overstated.

My family GP has me referred onto what, I feel, is like every waiting list. Most things have taken a long time to get into, but once in, then the magic started to happen. The local Primary Care services have only really kicked in since March 2022, but since then, things have genuinely come on. The doctors, therapists, student placements, groups, activities, reviews, forums, supports for my partner, it all has helped give us support and direction that was more needed than we ever realised. Once you get to the top of the line, it is worth the wait. From my experience and what I have seen, these people work miracles with those of us that land in front of them. It is still just the start of another process, but it feels more like actually being on the road to some kind of recovery now. It has been the first time since the accident that I can start to see the shape of a life after.

There is definitely more going on locally in terms of rehabilitation and support than I ever realised. I had no idea about the services available. The problem is discovering them, and that usually does not happen until you get into the services proper. Once I started meeting other service users in the groups, only then did I start to hear very similar stories, experiences, battles, but also finding out about supports I never knew existed even after almost 4 years. These are remarkable people who are on their journey’s, but the desire to help is strong and everyone is supportive and welcoming.

Stars in the Night Sky

There is no going back after a trauma. There is just the time before, and the time after. After suffering it, we have to do the hard, long work of unlearning a lifetime of ‘normal’ and trying to discover what the ‘new normal’ will be. It’s especially hard when there is so much friction and pressure on you and everyone around you, when you take each new day as a victory in itself. But those on the outside cannot see you getting back to how you were. A common theme through this, and talking to others, is that whatever social circles you were part of will fall away. In a way, I fell out of sync with the life’s of those around me, like a broken clock. Sporadically, some may resurface to check in, but for the most part, you are not just in different time zones, but wholly different realities. Nobody else can go on this journey with me, even my family have struggled, and they have been there for every step and knock-down.

I am not done yet.

I do not want to be done yet.

“Gratitude makes optimism sustainable. If you’re grateful for the opportunities you have, for what you’ve been given to do work-wise, for the opportunities that exist, you’re optimistic. If you can just find those moments, I always feel that if you flip the coin 100 times, you’re going to come up heads 51.”

Michael j. Fox

As long as I have a say in it, I want to keep moving forward. My condition will worsen in the years to come, like a ticking bomb, but no point sitting there and watching it.

You can see I have frustrations with the systems I have had to work within, with how things have been handled along the way. All that being said, I have benefited from the kindness and goodness of so many outstanding people along the way. Individuals who have given me their time and effort to help me and my family on this path. There are saints in the machinery of the bureaucracies we go up against. I have met many on every step of the way, and will never be able to thank them enough for what they have done for me.

On those thoughts, I will wrap this up here. There is no happy ending here, and sometimes things are just shit. There is no other way to describe it. We are pushing through, and the friction is not as bad as it was. A long way to go, but we have worked miracles to get where we are today. That is something to be grateful for.

“I am so happy that I am alive, in one piece and short. I’m in a world of shit… yes. But I am alive. And I am not afraid”.

Private joker, full metal jacket