CURIOUS COMPENSATION CASE

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume X, Issue 481, 11 August 1914, Page 7

CURIOUS COMPENSATION CASE

'X-RAYS PHOTOGRAPHS DOUBTEfo. The reliability of X-ray photographs aa showing a fracture of a. process m the lower portion of the spine was one of the principal (points m a Avorkmen's compensation case heard by Judge Greenwell at Berwick County Court the other day. The applicant, Adam Darling, a carter, fell from his cart 2£ years ago, and struck the side of the shaft. The respondents, the Scremerston Colliery Company, paid compensation up till October last. Dr Taylor, Benvick, the medical attendant, said there Avas a grave lesion, producing tAvo sets of curvatures. The man had got Avorse steadily., and would never be fit for manual work. From sciagrams taken m Edinburgh m February^, he diagnosed a fracture of the right, lumbarsacral articulation. Dr ColKngwood Stewart, Newcastle, generally corroborated as to applicant's condition. Dr Hume, Avho Avas called by the respondents, said the sciagrams sWved no such fracture ; sciagrams were notoriously unreliable, and that portion of the back Avas especially difficult to show m such a Avay as to make the photograph the hasis of treatment. Dr Anderson, Avho Avas an expert, Avqjild not go into the witness box and give evidence on his OAvn sciagrams. It was inconceivable tbat applicant could cycle, as he admittedly did, if there were such a fracture As Avas complained of ; and the pain Avhich he said he suffered he located much higher up the back than the alleged fracture. His rigid position, with the back exaggeratedly throAvn m, Avas, Avitn^a** suggested, assumed. Judge Greemvell said that he did not believe there Avas a fracture. . It was m applicant's favor that he had worked half a day after the accident, and that he had tried lighter Avork one day last year. The award Avould be such as to induce him to work, if possible. He found applicant's earning capacity to 'be^ 7s ,per week, and reduced the compensation originally paid from 10s to 3s per week.