Once again, I beg to differ with both of you. Each of us claims to be knowledgeable in his own field of work, maybe even up to expert level. So I think we should concede the same to the expert psychologists/psychiatrists who examined the young lady and came to the joint conclusion that she was severely traumatised by the accident. To the point, that now, ten years later and in her twenties, she is "unemployable". Which means that she may, unless one day she recovers from her condition, never be able to earn her own living. In other countries she would have been awarded 10 or even 100 times the sum that she now gets because of that. And if you read the paper, she (or her family) did not sue right after the accident. But only years later, after it became obvious that permanent damage was done.
Did any of you two ever suffer from panic attacks? Lay awake every night and relive that near-death experience over and over again? Me neither, but I know people who do. They do not have a good life. Two of them are professional pilots, both are unable to continue working in their/our(!) profession. Neither of them suffered an actual accident, "just" very close calls, one in a jet fighter too low to eject and the other during a cocked-up approach into a Swiss mountain airfield with a business jet. No two humans have the same mental stability, some can shake off such an experience, others can get over it after months or years of counsel and yet others never fully recover.
What would you write here if she had actually suffered physical damage, maybe lost an arm or a leg in the accident? That this is no big deal because teenagers see lots of blood and ripped-off limbs in the scary movies they like to watch? Certainly not. So why would (permanent) psychological damage constitute a lesser disability than losing a leg?
Last edited by Pilot DAR; 24th Mar 2021 at 16:15.
Reason: typo