Sascha Wil­son

A for­mer em­ploy­ee of Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) who was in­jured on the job, ren­der­ing him un­em­ploy­able, has been award­ed $732,000 in dam­ages. Yes­ter­day, Mas­ter Bren­da Paray-Du­ri­ty, pre­sid­ing in the San Fer­nan­do High Court, award­ed the dam­ages to 49-year-old Rick­ie Davis. The Ari­ma res­i­dent, who was in­jured while work­ing as a "C" class lines­man at T&TEC in 2003, had sued the com­pa­ny for neg­li­gence. He was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Robin Ra­moutar, in­struct­ed by Roop­nar­ine & Com­pa­ny, while T&TEC was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Ravin­dra Nan­ga, in­struct­ed by Salma Ra­haman.

In his wit­ness state­ment, Davis said on Oc­to­ber 25, 2003, he in­jured his back and had been un­able to work since. In ad­di­tion, he said, he had been un­able to lift heavy ob­jects, bend or stand for long pe­ri­ods and had to take pain killers dai­ly. He said the in­jury af­fect­ed his per­son­al, in­ti­mate and ath­let­ic life, in­clud­ing not be­ing able to lift his six-month-old grand-daugh­ter. Re­count­ing the fate­ful day, he said he and his co-work­ers were re­turn­ing to the work place at Dis­tri­b­u­tion Cen­tre, Tumpuna Road, Ari­ma, af­ter go­ing out on a job.

He said he was seat­ed on the left rear seat of the ve­hi­cle which was trav­el­ling along the Man­zanil­la Main Road. On ne­go­ti­at­ing a left hand bend, he said, the truck sud­den­ly tilt­ed as the right wheels went in­to a large de­pres­sion on the right side of the road­way. "I thought the truck was about to cap­size so I tried to grab the door to hold on. As I did so I felt a sharp pain and heard a pop­ping noise in my back." Davis said a sub­se­quent doc­tor's vis­it re­vealed he suf­fered from lum­bar spondy­lo­sis with an L4/5 disc her­ni­tion. His per­ma­nent par­tial dis­abil­i­ty as a re­sult of the in­jury was 20 per cent.