“I smashed myself on the ground”… She fractures both wrists in front of a clinic and points out the responsibility of the establishment

She has been fighting for several months to be compensated for her damage. Sylvie Albouze, 60, had an accident on March 8 at the entrance to the Toulouse-Lautrec clinic in Albi, from which she emerged with both fractured wrists.

This former nurse, now undergoing retraining, who lives in a village in the Pays Cordais, went there to have an X-ray of her shoulder. A simple check-up following an injury which had already caused him to have an operation in Toulouse and the loss of his previous job.

On the day of the accident, she had just parked in the parking lot of the Albigensian clinic and took the central alley which leads to the entrance to the establishment. A pedestrian lane where small concrete blocks are placed to prevent cars from accessing it. Her partner, she explains, also had an appointment a little later for a knee X-ray. As she was walking, she thought she recognized her car coming. She stopped and turned her head in his direction. “Actually it wasn’t him, I started walking again.” But she didn't see the anti-car device that was right in front of her. “The obstacle was at my feet, I fell to the ground. I lost consciousness a little and I heard people behind me coming to my aid.”

When she gets up, she feels severe pain in the extremities of her upper limbs. A first x-ray taken on site at the left wrist, the most painful, revealed a double fracture and a sprain. She will have surgery at the clinic three days later. For the right wrist, he will have to wait three weeks and a prescription from his doctor before carrying out an x-ray which also shows a fracture.

Amicable procedure

“I had three and a half months of sick leave. I was immobilized with two splints,” says Sylvie. “As I was receiving unemployment, I contacted the CPAM for daily allowances. I had no idea how it happened. They told me to report an accident caused by a third party.”

Wishing to obtain compensation for her loss of income, which is not covered by either her insurance or her mutual fund, she had to turn against the clinic, which she considers responsible for the accident. She denounces the anti-car device, “two small rocks and three concrete blocks, placed a little haphazardly in the middle of the alley”, which would have been modified by the establishment a few weeks after its fall.

Following the sending of a letter to the management of the clinic, for which she “had no response”, Sylvie contacted a lawyer, Me Bellen-Rotger, who launched a procedure at the amicable. In vain: the establishment's insurer refuses to cover the consequences of his fall, on the grounds that the clinic is not responsible. Because the former nurse does not provide proof that she fell on the device or that it was changed. “They think it’s only my fault, that I was clumsy,” she explains.

Sylvie is therefore launching a call for witnesses, to find people present during the accident or who may have noticed the replacement of the anti-car device.