If you are injured in an accident involving sharp objects, there’s a chance you’ll suffer a laceration. It’s likely to be painful and cause some bleeding and, in some cases, may result in permanent scarring. Cuts and lacerations can be sustained in scenarios including road traffic accidents, workplace accidents, assaults and cases of medical negligence. Importantly, if you’ve suffered a laceration due to somebody else’s negligence, you may be eligible to make a laceration injury claim for compensation for your suffering.

If you or your child has suffered a laceration we could help you to start the claims process. Initially, we’ll offer free legal advice as part of our no-obligation consultation. If one of our personal injury solicitors believes that your claim is viable, they’ll process the claim on a No Win No Fee basis. That means they’ll help you to claim compensation for your injuries without any upfront legal fees being paid.

To speak to us right away about a laceration compensation claim, please call us on 0800 6524 881 today. To find out more about how to claim for a laceration before contacting us, please read on.

What Is A Laceration Injury?

A laceration injury can be much more serious than a minor cut or graze. Laceration injuries can be caused by:

• Puncture wounds – where the skin is broken by something sharp such as a piece of glass, a knife or a nail and the foreign body either remains in situ or exists through the same point.
• Penetration wounds – where the skin is broken by a sharp object and exists at another point i.e. where a piece of glass goes right through your hand.

Any form of laceration has the potential to cause damage to the skin, tendons, ligaments and muscles so can cause very serious injuries. Depending on the location of your injury, lacerations can also cause temporary or permanent nerve damage.

Laceration compensation claims are based on the amount of pain you had to endure plus any long-term suffering. For example, you may receive more compensation for a laceration that reduces the grip in your dominant hand than you would for a laceration that causes scarring that’s usually hidden by clothing.

What Treatment Is Available For Lacerations?

The first stage of treating a laceration is to try and stop it from bleeding. This can usually be achieved by pressing a clean cloth over the wound and applying pressure. After that, the wound will be sterilised and dressed to allow it to heal naturally where possible.

Sutures or clips may be used for larger lacerations to hold the skin together while the wound heals. These would normally need to be removed by a nurse after around 5 to 14 days. Steristrips or tissue glue are sometimes used to hold less serious lacerations together.

As well as treating the laceration, your doctor will assess whether there is any damage to the tissues beneath the skin. Surgery may be needed to repair any ligament, tendon or muscle damage.

Do Lacerations Cause Scarring?

Generally, there will be some form of scarring after a laceration has healed. The severity of the cut will dictate how large a scar remains and whether it will be permanent. Scarring can lead to physical symptoms as well as mental health claims for issues such as embarrassment especially for scarring to the face. This type of suffering would need to be considered when making a laceration injury claim.

Am I Eligible To Make A Laceration Injury Compensation Claim?

If your laceration injury claim is taken on by one of our personal injury solicitors, it’s because they believe you’ve got a fair chance of being compensated. Some of the criteria they’ll use to assess this include:

• Did the defendant owe you a duty of care?
• Did the accident or incident happen because of the defendant’s negligence?
• Did you sustain a laceration during the accident?

Proving a duty of care is more straightforward than you might think. Effectively, while you’re working, in a public place, on business premises or even in a rented property, you’ll be owed a duty of care. You needn’t worry about which piece of legislation provides this duty as it’s something your solicitor will confirm for you.

You can help to make the claims process easier though by collecting evidence to prove how you sustained the laceration. We’ll provide more information about this later on.

Common Causes Of Laceration Injury Claims

As stated in the previous section, you could be compensated for lacerations that resulted from somebody else’s negligence. To give some idea about what that means, we’ve added some common examples below:

• Workplace accidents – you may be eligible to claim for a laceration caused by a cutting machine, for example, because its safety device was missing and not replaced by your employer.
• Road Traffic Accidents – during an RTA, lacerations can be caused by broken glass and sharp edges of a damaged vehicle. Therefore, a laceration injury claim might be possible for accidents caused by another driver’s reckless, careless or dangerous driving.
• Public place accidents – an example here might be if you slipped on a wet floor in a nightclub and sustained a deep cut after falling onto bottles that had not been cleared from the dance floor by the club’s operator.
• Medical negligence – while quite rare, you could claim compensation if a mistake during cosmetic surgery led to you suffering a laceration to your face.
• Stabbings – being stabbed often cause severe lacerations for which a criminal injury claim may be possible.

Even if we’ve not listed the type of accident you’ve had here, please get in touch and we’ll review your options with you for free.

How Much Compensation For A Laceration Could I Claim?

If you make a personal injury claim for a laceration cut, you could receive compensation for any of the following:

• Physical pain and suffering.
• Severe psychological injuries.
• Loss of amenity (a negative impact on your normal hobbies and activities).
• Reduction in earnings.
• Future loss of earnings.
• Care, travel and medical costs.
• Any damage to your personal property (clothes etc).

It’s important to note that only one claim can be made so you must consider any suffering caused by your laceration that might continue for the long term.

Laceration Injury Compensation Amounts Guide

Each laceration claim is unique in that each claimant will suffer in different ways. As part of the claims process, an independent medical assessment will be needed to help your solicitor determine the settlement you might be entitled to. Before that happens, we’ve provided some guideline compensation amounts for lacerations to get some idea of what your claim could be worth:

• £6,610 – £12,590 compensation for an industrial laceration.
• Up to £12,590 compensation for a minor to moderate laceration to an elbow/s.
• £5,720 – £13,280 compensation for a deep laceration to a hand/s.
• Up to £11,840 compensation for a laceration to a leg/s.
• Up to £13,740 compensation for a moderate laceration to a knee/s.
• Up to £13,740 compensation for a modest laceration to a foot/feet.
• Up to £9,600 compensation for a moderate laceration to a toe/s.

Please remember that these amounts are listed for guidance only.

What Evidence Can I Use To Support A Laceration Injury Claim?

Most defendants in personal injury claims pass everything on to an insurance company to deal with. That means you’ll need to provide evidence to convince the insurer that they should compensate you. For laceration injury claims, this evidence could include:

• Photographs from the accident scene and of your laceration.
• Details of anybody else who was there in case witness statements are needed to confirm what happened.
• A copy of an accident report form to help confirm where and when the accident occurred.
• Confirmation of your laceration cut from your hospital or GP records.
• CCTV or dashcam footage if the accident was caught on camera.
• Financial records such as bank statements or receipts to help claim back any out-of-pocket expenses.

In addition to the above, it’s usually a good idea to write down everything that happened at the time you were suffering from the laceration injury. You could also write a diary to record all of the dates your laceration prevented you from working or participating in family activities.

What’s The Time Limit For Making A Laceration Injury Claim?

In most cases, laceration injury claims need to be started within 3-years of your accident. However, if you are starting a claim on behalf of your child by becoming a litigation friend, you can begin the claim at any time before they turn 18 years old.

As part of the claims process, your solicitor will need to gather medical records and other evidence to support your claim. To allow them plenty of time to do so, it’s usually a good idea to begin the claims process as soon as you can.

If you need physiotherapy or are struggling to cope because of a reduction in earnings while you’re injured, your solicitor may be able to request that interim payments are made by the defendant before the laceration injury claim is finalised.

Starting The Laceration Injury Claims Process

We are here to help if you would like to discuss your claim today. Feel free to call us on 0800 6524 881 for a free initial consultation. During the call, an advisor will review what happened, answer your questions and advise you on your options.

If your claim is suitable and accepted by one of our specialist in-house personal injury solicitors, you’ll be represented on a No Win No Fee basis. That should make the claims process less stressful as you won’t need to pay any legal fees whatsoever unless you’re compensated.

Please use our live chat service to contact us with any additional questions about the process of making a laceration injury claim.