Alfonsas Stonis personal injury claim - short story

During my personal injury claim process, and I had to contact different organisations. So, I have to provide a short background story. The difficulty is that often information that is relevant in one case is not relevant in another. The best solution that I have found so far is to have one short story listing just main events and another one writing about impact. I found that this way I can reuse my stories many times.

Battle with QBE

I was cycling in Sydney when a car from oncoming traffic made a right turn straight into me on 2015-03-30. I was sure I was going to die when I saw a car accelerating towards me. I survived, but among other things, like chronic pain and the fear stayed. Since then, I am struggling with PTSD.

I was crossing an intersection on the green light. It happened during peak hours, next to Sydney Central train station. There were witnesses confirming the driver's fault. Driver stated that cyclists have no right to be on the road, so he was in his right to hit one when see one on the road. Unfortunately, the policeman attending the scene made sure that the driver got away without any consequences.

Dealing with QBE was a re-traumatizing experience. I was pressured to withdraw my claim starting from the first call from QBE after I notified them about the road collision. They never paid for any treatment. Instead, I was sent to different specialists with an empty promise that they will pay after assessment. I also never got their psychologist assessment report, but instead later I was sent to another one. Empty promises that they are finalising their decision about liability and compensation will contact me with a treatment plan and compensation offer soon was very damaging. As it never came true and only made me feel helpless. By law they are required to respond in 3 months, but it took 3 years for QBE. They did it only after I stopped believing their promises and contacted lawyers. The whole process from QBE was based on lies and disregard of the law.

I initially contacted Law Partners to represent me. However, I was unhappy with their representation. I feel that they did not collect or submit important information about my health problems (for example they withhold the information that I have PTSD and downplayed it to depression). At the end of April 2020, I got a report by Vanitha Moodley (a psychologist hired by QBE solicitors) that had a large number of absurd errors. Law Partners used that report and exaggerated fees to $178,327.22 to push me to settle under very bad conditions.

I changed solicitors to Moya de Luca-Leonard. At first Leonard organised an assessment by a psychiatrist who specialises in PTSD and submitted the documents I sent to her to PIC. Independent assessment confirmed PTSD and significant impact on my life 19% whole person impairment. However, after this, in her submissions to PIC Leonard withheld information about errors in Moodley report and factually incorrect statements by Ceballos, QBE solicitor. Leonard then pushed me to accept an unfavourable settlement without any compensation for loss of past income. When I asked to submit documents to PIC for independent assessment Leonard resigned. She sent me a bill of $77,071.50.

I had to find a new solicitor quickly to prepare and submit documents and represent me at the PIC assessment. Livers offered to represent me based on regulated fees (I did not know what it was). He also said that he has 30 years of experience in personal injury claims and is highly experienced in it. Livers did not help prepare documents for PIC damages assessment and was dragging time submitting information and insisting that I do not complain about misinformation from Ceballos. He insisted that it is better if it comes from his name. However, he sent nothing and during the PIC assessment conference completely misrepresented me.

PIC member in his determination relied on some misinformation from Ceballos and added a lot on its own. I got a compensation very close to the possible minimum. Livers broke his promise to appeal. I was left in a situation where it was physically impossible to find a new lawyer and submit an appeal on time. My health took a heavy hit and I had no choice but to accept determination and focus on survival. I ended up with a great feeling of injustice. Now I am left to deal with exaggerated fees, misconduct and corruption.

It seems to me that the QBE solicitor had more to say about what my solicitors do rather than my instructions.

How I am right now

After I got injured some part of me got lost, locked away. I cannot think or feel properly. I am in constant feeling of overwhelming danger and some parts get shut down as not important right now for survival. I started getting it back 5 years after the injury when I went through a PTSD treatment program, but it was set back by the attack of QBE (their psychologist and solicitor) and betrayal of my solicitors. I started getting back some feelings again about 2 years ago (it goes in waves, getting better and worse) a bit more permanently. However, it did not come back fully and the PIC assessment conference was a terrible hit. It has been almost a year now and at night when I wake up I can experience all my feelings. O my good it is painful. I get full awareness of loss. All these 9 years I was in either full autopilot mode or in at least partial shutdown mode. While I can not remember most of 9 years and I was not experiencing it fully, the suffering was experienced at some subconscious level and is being stored. It hits me with the full force. It is too painful and it is too much. All my insides are burning. I can not take it for a long time. I can not take it physically. It has to be locked up again, I just would like to be able to access it. I am not sure if I will be able to sleep anymore tonight. While I will not be able to feel it full it still will be taking my energy (or at least if feels like it). My hyper vigilance is at an absurdly high level. Fridge made some strange noises. I wanted to jump as if my life is in physical danger. I will exhaust all my energy very soon. The remaining of it will be used to lock feelings away. It is important to be able to feel, but even more important is to be able to act. It is too much right now. So, I am writing it down, while I still can. My heart is in so much pain from overworking.

Oh my god. #$%%... Breath... Few... I got an SMS. It is a post-call survey. I get it after every call to Men's Line Australia. I felt like someone shot a bullet at me. I cannot take it anymore. I knew I would get an SMS. It comes after every call. Yet, I forgot. I need to focus on distractions. Dying from a heart attack would be very stupid. Just a last thought, before I go: I lost not only 9 years of my life, but a major part of 20 years before. I spend improving my skills as a software developer the big part of 20 years before I got injured. I really loved what I was doing and wanted to be the best at it. This is not mentioning my private life.

I need to start locking my feelings away. At least now I am doing it with full awareness, I hope that it will let me access at least some of them later. I will be like a zombie today. As soon as I start relaxing, I will feel how tired I am. I am completely deflated. I keep telling myself this is the past. It is gone. I would like to focus on what I can do now. However, I cannot. My head is not working. To know what to do right now I would need to know where I am, and it is too overwhelming. Instead, I will focus on the little I can do now. It is going to be very little, but this is all I can do. I cannot even think of how sad it is as it will be overwhelming too.