Gotta admit if I were to suffer any brain damage, I'd prefer it result from doing something a bit more fun & adrenaline-filled like snowboarding, mountainbiking, drinking imperial strenght beers, AG Brewing, uncapping unexploded bottle bombs from a dodgy batch, etc...
During my working life, I had the misfortune to deal with many sad tragic cases such as this one. Unfortunately, no matter how well all this is publicised, people never seem to learn, and certainly not when they have alcohol or substances in their system (not that I'm saying that's the case here).
This guy's family (well, he'll never recover to the extent where he can do it for himself) will lodge a claim on the Greenslip insurer of the car he fell from.
My prognosis, from my understanding of the extent of his injuries, is that he will sadly never recover to anywhere near his pre-accident condition, if he survives at all. He will likely be left with the permanent life long after affects of a serious brain injury. He probably will always need someone to care for him. I doubt he will ever work in any productive capacity.
The legal system will find negligence on the part of the driver of the vehicle, after all, what sort of neanderthal idiot drives off with someone lying on the car without hanging on? They will also find a degree of contributory negligence on the guy himself. That means there will a shitload of money awarded to him, but it will never really be enough to take care of all his needs etc, because his award will be discounted from what it should be if he was blameless himself. So, that means he will also become a burden on the state to a degree at some stage.
Nevertheless, his award will run into $millions. Think about that the next time you ponder the price of Greenslips. How many Greenslip premiums does it take to pay an award of between say $5 to $10 million?
