A Tesco delivery driver has won a legal battle with the supermarket after contracting a potentially fatal disease believed to have been caused by handling items soaked in rat urine. Darren Finn, 42, is lucky to be alive after he was hospitalised with Weil's disease which spread through his body turning his skin 'Homer Simpson yellow' as his kidneys began to fail.
Doctors believe the lorry driver contracted the disease through a minor cut on his eye after handling empty packaging and food waste while carrying out deliveries from the now-closed Harlow, Essex, depot.
The father-of-two was admitted to hospital on November 15, 2012, where doctors treated him for kidney failure, jaundice and loss of liver function while they struggled to establish what had caused his body to go into near-fatal shutdown.
It wasn't until five days later that test results finally pinpointed Weil's disease.
Mr Finn, who now works for logistics company DHL, has received a five figure settlement after Tesco ended a five-year legal battle, prior to trial. Tesco said they take health and safety issues on their sites very seriously.
Mr Finn, a former Tesco employee from Harlow, Essex, said: 'I honestly believe if I hadn't gone to hospital when I did, I wouldn't be here now.
'After two weeks of battling extreme flu-like symptoms my eyes and skin both turned a violent shade of yellow and I could barely walk.
'By the time I arrived in hospital it felt like every part of my body was bruised and my head was going to explode with the pain.
'If I had waited another day to go to hospital the disease would have spread to my heart and lungs. <!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-109237959-1"></script>
<script>
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
gtag('js', new Date());
gtag('config', 'UA-109237959-1');
</script>
<!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-XDGJVZXVQ4"></script> <script> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'G-XDGJVZXVQ4'); </script>
No comments:
Post a Comment