At the High Court a work injury compensation award of just under €40,000 has been approved for a 36-year-old garda who was attacked by a woman in a squad car.
Judge Justice Tony O’Connor said at the High Court Garda Compensation hearing that Garda Sinead McBride, a mother of two, had suffered post-traumatic rotator-cup tendonitis in her left shoulder after the incident and experienced pain for three years and still felt occasional twinges over seven years later.
Legal counsel for Garda McBride informed the court Garda McBride had been kicked in the shoulder by “an aggressive and abusive” woman while she was being apprehended in connection with a disturbance at a family residence in August 2011.
Garda McBride told Judge O’Connor she had been driving the squad car that the arrested woman had been in the back in the aftermath of the arrest. The woman kicked her in the back of her left shoulder without any warning.
Garda McBride was taken to her GP and Letterkenny University Hospital to have her soft tissue injuries and also underwent a course of physiotherapy. She was absent from work for some time before returning to light duties for a period despite having movement restrictions and discomfort in her shoulder and neck. She told the court that she still has some find it uncomfortable to tend to her children and that the pain returns a number of times every so often.
When she was pregnant with her two children, Garda McBride had been unable to use any painkillers. She is now pregnant with her third child and will, once again, be unable to use painkillers. Along with this she has undergone almost 20 sessions of physiotherapy at a cost over around €4,000.
Judge O’Connor informed the Court that he felt Garda McBride was a genuine witness and did not seek to overemphasise the extent of her injuries following the attack.