A total of 26 victims of the Costa Concordia shipwreck, which struck a rock off the island of Giglio (Italy) on 13 January 2012, are claiming compensation for the persistence of their injuries, which have worsened over the years and become chronic. The lawyer for the Association of Spanish Victims of the Costa Concordia 2012, Antonia Barba, has submitted a letter requesting that they be paid the difference between the amounts paid at the time for the after-effects and those now being requested given their subsequent appearance or aggravation.
This association is made up of around fifty people from the Canary Islands, the Balearics, Andalusia, the Valencian Community and Madrid. In the letter, to which EFE has had access, it is explained that this request is being made after 12 years of observing the persistence and evolution of the sequelae and it is specified that, as a result, they fall into the category of consolidated and permanent sequelae. After 12 years of persistent symptoms and impact on their daily lives, those affected have hired the services of a medical expert.
The medical reports provided by the patients of the Association of Spanish Victims ‘clearly’ show that those affected present a consistent picture of chronic and long-lasting post-traumatic stress disorder. Barba told EFE that the persistence of the symptoms for more than ten years, their resistance to the treatments applied and their significant impact on the daily, working, social and family lives of those affected ‘prove the existence of continuous, serious and clinically objectifiable psychological damage’.
The documentation provided in the expert report issued within the first year after the accident already identified ‘clearly and rigorously’ the presence of acute post-traumatic stress disorder, directly related to the traumatic events experienced during the shipwreck. However, the clinical evolution observed in subsequent years shows that this disorder, ‘far from remitting, has progressed chronically’ over 12 years, despite the therapeutic interventions carried out.
Once the persistence of the symptoms and the lack of complete recovery have been confirmed, it can be stated, according to the lawyer, that ‘these are chronic psychological sequelae compatible with moderate post-traumatic stress disorder, which is classified as intermediate according to the traffic scale’.
The lawyer has specified that subsequent medical reports demonstrate the progression towards chronicity, which were not previously assessed, given the short time that had elapsed since the accident and the reports provided in the first case, on which the medical expert of the defendant company and the sentencing court based their decisions.
In fact, the company has reached agreements with other passengers for amounts much higher than those set by the court, precisely because they were assessed at a later date and the chronicity and extent of the sequelae were already objectively established. The Costa Concordia sank on 13 January 2012 while carrying 4,229 people on board after colliding with a rock off the coast of the Italian island of Giglio in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The shipping company admitted that the shipwreck, which left 25 dead and seven missing, occurred after the ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, approached the island’s coastline, deviating from the established route.