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If you have suffered broken rib injuries, breathing difficulties, soft tissue damage, or another chest injury after an accident caused by somebody else’s actions, you could be entitled to claim compensation. Chest injury compensation claims can arise after road traffic accidents, workplace accidents, public liability accidents, and other serious incidents that leave people dealing with pain, restricted movement, and financial uncertainty. Speaking to our advisors early could help you understand what your chest injury compensation claim may be worth.
Recovering from a chest injury can feel overwhelming, particularly when ongoing pain, breathing difficulties, or reduced mobility begin affecting your work, finances, and independence. Some people require physiotherapy, surgery, or ongoing medical support following serious chest injuries, while others struggle with the emotional impact of a lengthy recovery. To help demonstrate the full extent of these effects, the solicitors on our panel can obtain medical records, arrange independent medical assessments, and gather evidence of any financial losses or ongoing care needs so that the impact of the injury is properly reflected when valuing a compensation claim.
Furthermore, compensation for the most severe chest injuries where one lung has been removed, or you’ve suffered serious heart damage could range from £133,000 to £198,320 in line with the brackets provided within the Judicial College Guidelines.
The solicitors on our panel at Legal Helpline can guide you through the claims process and explain what your chest injury compensation claim could include. By supporting you throughout the process, our panel can help make pursuing compensation feel clearer and more manageable during an already difficult time.
Contact Legal Helpline today for a free claim assessment and find out in minutes whether you could make a personal injury compensation claim with a solicitor from our panel.
Jump To A Section
- Am I Able To Make A Chest Injury Compensation Claim?
- Examples Of Accidents That Could Lead To A Chest Injury
- Can I Claim For Chest Injury Medical Negligence
- Criminal Assault Or Violence Chest Injuries
- What Types Of Chest Injuries Can I Make A Claim For?
- How Much Chest Injury Compensation Can I Claim?
- Can I Claim For Other Damages After Injuring My Chest?
- What Will I Need To Bring A Claim For Chest Injury Compensation?
- Why Claim With Legal Helpline’s Panel Of Solicitors After A Chest Injury?
- Can I Claim For An Injured Chest On A No Win No Fee Basis?
- Learn More
Am I Able To Make A Chest Injury Compensation Claim?
Yes, you could make a chest injury compensation claim if your injury was caused because another party failed to keep you safe.
To be eligible to claim compensation, a solicitor from our panel will need to show that:
- You Were Owed a Duty of Care: Another person, employer, business, or organisation was responsible for protecting your health and safety at the time of the accident.
- This Duty Was Breached: They failed to take reasonable steps to prevent harm, such as driving carelessly, ignoring workplace safety procedures, or failing to repair known hazards that could cause injury.
- You Suffered a Chest Injury as a Result: This may include rib fractures, collapsed lungs, soft tissue injuries, or other physical and psychological damage.
Our advisors at Legal Helpline could connect you with our panel of solicitors, who can assess your circumstances and explain whether you could begin a chest injury compensation claim.
Examples Of Accidents That Could Lead To A Chest Injury
Chest injuries can happen in many different situations where somebody fails to take proper care of your safety. Below are some examples of how you may have grounds to seek compensation:
Chest Injuries At Work
Whilst at work, your employer owes you a duty of care under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. Per this, they must take all reasonable steps to protect your safety.
A chest injury can be sustained in an accident at work if:
- During a warehouse shift, you are instructed to manually move heavy boxes of stock without being given workplace training that staff have repeatedly requested. The weight of the load causes you to fall forward onto a storage barrier that crushes your chest and leaves you with fractured ribs and internal injuries.
Public Place Chest Injury
In public places, the business or owner of a premises must ensure that it is reasonably safe for any visitors, under the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957.
Chest injuries can arise after a public liability accident such as:
- While walking through a supermarket aisle, you trip over large delivery cages that staff have left blocking the walkway without any warning signs or barriers in place, causing you to fall heavily face-first onto the floor and suffer fractured ribs and serious soft tissue damage.
Injured Chest In A Road Accident
Road users must all operate in a way that minimises their risk of causing harm to themselves or to others. They must also adhere to the Road Traffic Act 1988 and the Highway Code when upholding their duty of care.
A road traffic accident could result in a chest injury if:
- While driving through a junction, another motorist speeds through a red light and crashes directly into the side of your vehicle, forcing your chest into the steering wheel and seatbelt and leaving you with fractured ribs and ongoing breathing difficulties.
Every chest injury claim is unique, and the circumstances surrounding the accident can play an important role in establishing liability. If you’d like to discuss your situation, our advisory team could help.
Can I Claim For Chest Injury Medical Negligence
Yes, you could claim compensation if a chest injury was caused or made worse by poor medical treatment. Chest injury medical negligence claims can arise when a doctor, hospital, GP, or other healthcare professional fails to diagnose, treat, or manage a chest injury properly.
For example, fractured ribs, internal bleeding, or a collapsed lung may be missed after an accident, causing the condition to worsen. Mistakes during surgery, delayed treatment, or failures to recognise breathing problems may also leave patients dealing with ongoing pain, infections, or long-term complications.
To make a medical negligence claim, you will need to show that the treatment you received caused avoidable harm.
Our advisors at Legal Helpline can help assess whether medical negligence may have occurred by reviewing the circumstances of your treatment and the evidence available.
Criminal Assault Or Violence Chest Injuries
You could claim compensation if you suffered a chest injury because of a violent assault or criminal attack. Chest injuries caused by violence can include broken ribs, chest trauma, internal bleeding, collapsed lungs, or other serious injuries resulting from punches, kicks, weapons, or physical assaults.
In these situations, compensation claims are often made through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA). The CICA is a government-funded scheme designed to compensate innocent victims of violent crime in England, Scotland, and Wales. To be eligible to make a claim, the incident will need to have been reported to the police, and the application must be started within the relevant time limits.
Recovering after a violent assault can be physically and emotionally overwhelming, particularly where serious chest injuries affect your ability to work, sleep, or carry out daily activities comfortably.
Our panel can help explain the CICA claims process, gather supporting evidence such as medical records and police reports, and ensure your application is completed as thoroughly as possible. Contact Legal Helpline today for a free claim assessment and find out whether you could begin a criminal injury compensation claim.
What Types Of Chest Injuries Can I Make A Claim For?
You could claim compensation for many different types of chest injuries sustained in an accident that wasn’t your fault. Chest injury compensation claims can involve both short-term injuries and more serious conditions that cause ongoing pain, breathing difficulties, or long-term complications.
This could include:
- Broken ribs
- Soft tissue damage to the chest
- Collapsed lungs and lung damage
- Internal bleeding and organ damage
- Blunt force trauma to the chest area
- Long-term breathing difficulties and chronic chest pain
Get in touch with our advisors at Legal Helpline today to discuss your injuries and find out what your chest injury compensation claim could be worth.
How Much Chest Injury Compensation Can I Claim?
The amount of chest injury compensation you could receive will depend on the seriousness of your injuries, how long your recovery takes, and whether you experience any long-term symptoms. While some people recover from minor injuries within weeks, others are left dealing with chronic chest pain, breathing difficulties, or permanent complications that affect daily life and work.
According to the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG), chest injury compensation claims could range from up to £5,220 for rib fractures or soft tissue injuries causing significant pain over a short recovery period, to £198,320 in severe cases involving the loss of a lung, serious heart damage, prolonged suffering, and permanent scarring. The JCG provide compensation brackets that legal professionals, including those working with Legal Helpline, may use as a starting point when assessing the value of a chest injury compensation claim.
Compensation in personal injury claims is generally divided into two categories. General damages cover pain, suffering, and the impact the injury has had on your quality of life. Special damages compensate for financial losses such as lost income, rehabilitation costs, medical treatment expenses, and travel costs linked to the injury.
When valuing chest injury compensation claims, our panel will refer to the JCG alongside medical evidence and the overall impact the injury has had on your life. The figures used in our table below are guideline compensation amounts only and do not guarantee how much compensation you may receive. Additionally, the top entry has not been taken from the JCG.
| Injury | Severity | Compensation |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple Very Serious Injuries + Financial Losses | Very Severe - a number of serious injuries as well as financial losses including lost earnings, medical expenses and professional care costs | Up to £350,000+ |
| Chest Injuries | (a) - The most severe chest injuries such as the removal of a lung or serious heart damage with ongoing pain and suffering | £133,000 to £198,320 |
| (b) - Traumatic chest injury, or lung/heart injury causing impairment of function, permanent damage and physical disability | £86,860 to £133,000 | |
| (c) - Damage to the chest and lungs causing some ongoing disability | £41,370 to £72,440 | |
| (d) - A relatively simple chest injury such as one penetrating wound causing some permanent damage to tissue but no significant long-term impact | £16,640 to £23,730 | |
| (e) -Toxic smoke/fume inhalation causing some residual damage but no permanent impact to lung function | £7,030 to £16,640 | |
| (f) - Injuries causing collapsed lungs from which an uncomplicated recovery is made | £2,900 to £7,030 | |
| (g) - Fractures of ribs or soft tissue injuries causing pain and disability for a weeks only | Up to £5,220 |
Can I Claim For Other Damages After Injuring My Chest?
Yes, you could also claim for special damages after injuring your chest, provided that the accident has affected you financially and physically. Chest injury compensation can include financial losses, which compensate people for the expenses linked to their injuries.
Severe chest injuries, breathing difficulties, fractured ribs, and organ damage can all affect your ability to work, travel, or manage daily activities independently during recovery. The solicitors on our panel can help identify and calculate any special damages that may form part of your chest injury compensation claim, ensuring all relevant losses are properly documented and included. To support this part of your claim, you will usually need evidence that demonstrates the financial impact the injury has had on you and your recovery, such as receipts.
Below, we explore a few of the things you could recover under special damages:
Lost Income
Severe chest injuries and ongoing chest pain often force people to take time away from physically demanding jobs while recovering. In more serious injury compensation claims, some individuals are unable to return to the same role because of breathing difficulties, reduced mobility, or permanent complications.
Medical Expenses
Treatment for severe chest injuries may include hospital stays, specialist consultations, prescription medication, respiratory treatment, or surgery, particularly where the injury causes ongoing complications or serious pain.
Recovery and Rehabilitation
Physiotherapy, respiratory therapy or psychological support can all aid in your recovery after a chest injury. The costs related to any assistive therapies can be recovered under special damages.
Care and Support Costs
Injuries to the chest can make everyday activities physically exhausting and extremely painful. Some individuals require additional support while recovering, especially where movement, lifting, sleeping, or even breathing comfortably becomes difficult.
This could include domestic assistance, professional care, or gratuitous help from family and friends.
Travel Expenses
Recovering from serious chest injuries often means that you may need to attend regular hospital appointments, respiratory clinics, follow-up scans, or independent medical assessments while their chest injury claim progresses. Any associated expenses could be recovered within special damages compensation.
The financial impact of a chest injury can continue long after the accident itself, so contact our advisory team to discuss how these losses could be considered as part of your claim.
What Will I Need To Bring A Claim For Chest Injury Compensation?
To bring a claim for chest injury compensation, you will need evidence showing how the accident happened, the injuries you suffered, and to ensure that your claim is started within the time limits.
How Can I Prove Fault For My Chest Injury?
To prove fault for your chest injury, you need documentary evidence showing how the accident happened. The evidence needed can vary depending on whether the injury happened in a road traffic accident, workplace accident, or another type of incident. If you work with one of the solicitors on our panel, they will collect this for you.
Examples of evidence that could support chest injury compensation claims include:
- Medical records confirming injuries such as broken ribs, soft tissue damage, or collapsed lungs
- X-rays, CT scans, or other imaging showing the extent of your chest injury
- Photographs of visible injuries, bruising, or the accident scene
- CCTV, dashcam footage, or witness statements showing how the accident occurred
- Accident book reports documenting chest pain, breathing difficulties, or the circumstances of the accident shortly after it happened
How Long After Injuring My Chest Can I Claim Compensation?
You will generally have 3 years to claim chest injury compensation. This time limit begins from the date of the accident that caused the chest injury, under the Limitation Act 1980. Although some exceptions to the standard time limit can apply, these will depend on the circumstances of the claim. However, it is important to seek legal advice as soon as possible while evidence is still available.
Get in touch with our advisors at Legal Helpline to explore how long you may have to begin your chest injury compensation claim.
Why Claim With Legal Helpline’s Panel Of Solicitors After A Chest Injury?
Claiming with Legal Helpline’s panel of personal injury solicitors after a chest injury means that you will experience compassionate support tailored to the physical, emotional, and financial impact serious chest injuries can cause.
Our panel of personal injury experts understand how overwhelming chest accident claims can feel when dealing with breathing difficulties, medical treatment, lost income, and ongoing pain. From gathering medical reports to establishing liability, our panel offers a comprehensive service focused on securing the maximum compensation possible for your chest injury claim.
Our panel of personal injury solicitors can help with tailored support by:
- Gathering medical records and independent medical reports to support your chest injury claim
- Helping establish liability and evaluate how the accident happened
- Calculating compensation amounts for serious chest injuries, lost income, and ongoing medical expenses
- Supporting clients suffering from collapsed lungs, rib fractures, blunt force trauma, and other severe chest injuries by connecting them with recovery specialists
- Handling communication and negotiations throughout the claims process on your behalf to make it seamless and stress-free
- Providing straightforward guidance from an experienced injury claims team focused on your recovery and wellbeing
- Offering a free claim assessment to help you understand whether you could claim compensation and what your claim may be worth
Get in touch with our advisors at Legal Helpline to learn how the solicitors on our panel could assist you in your own claim.
Can I Claim For An Injured Chest On A No Win No Fee Basis?
Yes, you can claim for an injured chest on a No Win No Fee basis with a solicitor from our panel at Legal Helpline. This can be beneficial to claimants because it allows them to pursue chest injury compensation claims without paying upfront service fees for their solicitor’s work.
Additionally, claimants aren’t faced with ongoing service fees while the claim progresses, and have nothing to pay towards the work of their solicitor if their claim was to be unsuccessful.
However, if a claim succeeds, then a small capped percentage would be taken out of the compensation. This is our panel’s success fee, and it is limited under the Conditional Fee Agreements Order 2013, to ensure that claimants receive the majority of their compensation. This fee is discussed before the claim begins so that our claimants fully understand the fees associated with making a claim.
To learn more about No Win No Fee chest injury compensation, please get in touch with our advisors today.
Contact Legal Helpline
The solicitors on our panel understand how serious chest injuries can affect your health, finances, independence, and quality of life, and they are committed to helping clients secure the compensation they deserve.
Contact Legal Helpline today for a free claim assessment. Our advisors can discuss the circumstances of your accident, explain whether you could begin a chest injury compensation claim, and connect you with a solicitor from our panel who can support you throughout the process.
You can reach us by:
- Calling us on 0333 000 0729
- Contacting us online
- Talking to one of our advisors using our live chat
Learn More
Why not read some more of our guides about:
- How to make a passenger injury claim
- Hairline fracture compensation claims with our panel
- How much compensation for slip, trip or fall injuries?
Helpful External Resources
- NHS information about chest pain
- Managing sickness absence guidance from the Health and Safety Executive
- How much Statutory Sick Pay you could get
Thank you for reading our chest injury compensation claims guide.