DAMAGES AWARD BRINGS GIRL INDEPENDENCE

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33776, 24 February 1975, Page 6

DAMAGES AWARD BRINGS GIRL INDEPENDENCE

(New Zealand Press Association—Copyright) PALMERSTON NORTH, February 23. “Now Mum and Dad don’t have to put up with me any more — and I don’t mean that the way it sounds.”

That was Jan Williams’s comment when asked how the award of $114,000 damages by a Supreme Court jury would affect her life. Since she was crippled almost three years ago after a car ran over her three and a quarter miles south of Longbum, Miss Williams has been entirely dependent ion her parents, Mary and : Norman Williams. HARD TO ACCEPT This to a woman, who early in her life wanted to make her own way, has been the hardest thing to accept. She has appreciated 'what her parents have done in the past three years, but ! her greatest wish has been ‘ to do more for herself, to i live her own life as much as possible. Her father sees the j $114,000 as the means to giving Jan her independence. I He wants to find a house or i build one which can be diivided into two separate units so that Jan can be independent. ; “We could also buy a ; little car of her own so her ! friends can take her out and she can come and go as she pleases,” he said. But the first thing to be ibought will be an electric wheelchair, which will cost about $BOO. Jan at present j propels her powerless wheelI chair by using her toes on i the floor. And Jan’s new ■ home will not necessarily be in Dunedin, where Mr Wil- ! Kams works as a clerk of i

works for the Otago Hospital Board. “She feels the cold in Dunedin and we may go where her olds friends are,” Mr Williams said. Jan said she had not made many" friends in Dunedin, because she is unable to move about. “All my old friends are in Palmerston North and Wellington she said. “They are the ones who stuck by me all these years.” BURDEN LIFTED Mr Williams feels the jury’s award has lifted a great burden. “When the time comes I can die happy,” he said. There had been tremendous strain on him and his wife, not knowing who would care for Jan after they died. They expected Jan would have to remain in an institution. “The end of the court case was also a tremendous relief. It has been hanging over us for three years,” Mr Williams said. “If we had

had to pay all the expenses for the case it would have taken us to rock-bottom.” And the last words from Jan to the reported, as she awkwardlj r manoeuvred her arms around so her rigid hands could touch up her make-up before a photograph was taken were: “Don’t you say I’m a quadraplegic. “I am not paralysed. I can move my limbs.”