With a nod to MacDoctor, I note a couple of stories on the Herald this afternoon.
A woman plans to appeal to the High Court after an Accident Compensation Corporation decision not to pay a $250,000 medical bill she was left with when she fell seriously ill after having a flu jab.
Allison Cottle, who has permanent New Zealand residency but lives in Cleveland, in the United States, contracted a life-threatening illness a month after having the flu jab in New Zealand in March 2007.
But later on in the story we find…
She was faced with a medical bill of US$180,482 (NZ$250,000), which ACC said it would not pay.
When Mrs Cottle asked for the decision to be reviewed, ACC was ordered to pay for the treatment.
However, it had successfully challenged that review through the courts, with a judge finding the law was on ACC’s side as the legislation stated that it should not pay for acute treatment received overseas.
An ACC spokesman said today that although ACC had every sympathy for Mrs Cottle’s situation it did not have any legal discretion to make a different decision.
So a story that looks like another case of ACC turning down clear claims becomes a simple case of someone trying to get ACC to cover something they legally can’t.
A horrified witness has spoken of how an enraged driver put his foot down and “just went for it” in a road-rage incident that left a man with two smashed legs.
In the first full account of Wednesday morning’s hit-and-run in inner Auckland, the witness described the moments before an Asian man was knocked down and dragged several metres along Mt Eden Rd.
Sounds awful. But later we read…
The Asian driver of a dark Mercedes had stopped in the middle of the street.
“I don’t know why,” the witness said. “Maybe he didn’t give way to the guy coming out of the carpark or something silly like that.”
He said the Saab driver pulled the Mercedes driver’s door open and was shouting at the man inside.
“Then he slammed the door shut on him and walked back to his car.”
The Mercedes driver then moved his vehicle from the middle of the road and parked. He strode over to the Saab, smacked the bonnet and began moving around to the driver’s door.
The witness watched in horror as the Saab driver appeared to slam his foot down on the accelerator to drive straight into him.
So it was a road rage incident, but the guy who was initially abused decided to pick a fight. Still a victim, but not quite the way the story is first presented.
ScrubOne’s advice for anyone involved in Road Rage is to take as many details of the other vehicle as you can and remove yourself from the situation. The one time this happened to me, I ran into a friendly policeman about 2 min later. 🙂
Something should go here, maybe later. 