Client reveals human cost of moose accidents as election begins

Today Premier Dunderdale will visit the Lieutenant Governor and the general provincial election will be officially on, with voting on October 11.  While the government posture is that they have taken action on the moose issue in the form of spending $5 million on pilot projects, Liberal leader Kevin Aylward says this is too little too late.  He will have a press conference today with Ben Bellows, representative plaintiff in the moose class action, and call for settlement of the claims. 

The politics of the issue should not distract us from the human tragedy underlying it.  Deanne Byrne provided the following account of her accident recently.

The accident happened on the Stephenville Highway at around 10:00pm August 10, 2008. I was taken to the hospital by ambulance to Sir Thomas Roddick in Stephenville. I was there until 5:00pm the next day, I had to wait for CT Scan to come back to make sure I did not have bleeding on the brain. It did show that I had a left eye socket fracture of the orbit, left cheek bone fracture and a shattered nose, later I was told I had my rotator cuff injured and needed surgery. I also found out from a specialist of dentistry that my jaw bones were shifted, I wear a $2000.00 mouth piece at night, I still can't pick up my son due to my shoulder, it hasn't healed back 100%, I can't do most of my house work, I could not return to my job as a retail associate due to the fact that I cannot left things or reach high up to get things down. I have been out of work since Dec, 2009 and have not been able to return since. I have no income coming in and I am very depressed because I can't stop thinking about what will happen if we don't have money for the rent, bills etc. My common law husband works but only makes $16.00 an hour bringing home about $900.00 every two weeks, and we have to pay out over $2000.00 a month in rent and bills and groceries. It is very frustrating when no one will help us, I would love to be able to go back to school and do something that I can work at. Thanks for your time and good luck to everyone down home, hope that we get what we are trying to speak out about, for the government to open their eyes and see what this problem is doing to us Newfoundlanders.

As class counsel, I made an offer of settlement to the government last week.  The amount that we estimate for pain and suffering damages for all 75 class members is not greatly out of line with the $5 million the government decided to spend on experiments in moose fencing and moose warning systems.  Class members like Deanne were injured while government overlooked its responsibilities and ignored the science on how moose vehicle accidents and injuries could be reduced by 50% or even more.  Class members were injured while government failed to implement scientifically-proved solutions found to work elsewhere.  People like Deanne need settlement now, not after years of chasing through the courts.  Premier Dunderdale, show the province what compassionate conservatism means by settling the moose vehicle class action now!