What’s a Sense of Smell Worth?

 For a Port St. Lucie woman, a sense of smell was worth $450,000.  That’s  the amount Stuart attorney Philip DeBerard obtained for her in an insurance settlement.

The young woman fractured a bone in her middle ear when she unbuckled her seat belt and attempted to get out of her boyfriend’s parked car.  In an effort to keep her from leaving the vehicle, her boyfriend slammed on the gas pedal, accelerating instead of stopping, ignoring a stop sign, and making a sharp turn at 20 miles per hour.  The force of this maneuver threw the young woman out of the car and onto the pavement, where she violently hit her head and fractured the right temporal bone in her auditory canal (middle ear). 

The injury left the 18-year-old woman with anosmia -- a permanent loss of smell -- and a partial loss of taste.   Prior to this accident, the young woman was very healthy and active, attending school and working part-time.   Now, she will not be able to smell the flowers on her wedding day, the salt air at the beach, the special smell of a freshly clean and powdered baby, or even a dangerous gas leak in her house. 

The Accident Law Offices of Philip DeBerard, www.flainjurylawyer.com  practices in the area of Personal Injury and Wrongful Death, serving Okeechobee, Stuart, Jupiter and Fort Pierce.