this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 179 points 5 months ago (4 children)

I wouldn't be so quick to discount her injuries. Ask anyone with a nagging back injury, some days you feel like an absolute champ and can throw a damn tree, but other days you're bed ridden from pinched up nerves. Thats just the nature of the injury.

I had a friend who got into a car accident, driver drove off a bridge. She's got a permanently fked up back. But you'd never know it from looking at her. Some days she's out and about playing football and cycling, other days she'll take 2 hours to get out of bed because the slightest movement will leave her in tears from her fked up vertebrae.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thank you.

One picture over riding medical reality is absolutely asinine, but it works often enough that insurance companies hire PIs to follow people around. Or did, before social media and algorithms started doing all the work for them.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago (1 children)

She also went to the doctors after the Christmas tree throwing. It's quite possible that the tree throwing aggrevated the injury and left her in a genuinely disabled state.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's quite possible winning a Christmas tree throwing competition was the sole reason her back got fucked up. I've fucked up my back just putting on socks so it's a bit absurd to assume a car accident was a necessary catalyst to an injury she reported after strenuous physical activity involving her back.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Definitely, though it depends on the type of accident. She was hit from behind, so if it was a relatively slow speed collision near a traffic light or junction or something you'd probably be right.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Seriously. I got T-boned by a red light runner. Good days and bad days.

Against her though, giiiiirrlll, you know better than to throw that tree. Tomorrow will suck for you. Gotta start thinking before you lift shit.

Also, how dumb ya gotta be to toss a tree during a lawsuit? Smh.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I agree completely. I have a heritable connective tissue disorder that causes me trouble to no end, especially in frequently used muscles, like those in my forearms. I have to be very careful of what I do - not lift too much or grip too hard, avoid too much repetitive motion like typing or gaming, don't hold things a certain way, etc. Once in awhile, I'll forget and just do something like I used to, like catching something heavy, and I'll be fine. Until the next morning, when I wake up in pain. Even then it's still not awful, it's the accumulation of multiple events that causes trouble. This isn't in line with what most people consider a physical disability, so I occasionally get flack from people who think I'm faking. Sometimes I choose to deal with some pain so I can do normal things for a bit, but there's no way I could do them every day for hours.

My point is a lot of people don't understand how physical disabilities actually work and seem to love "disproving" your limitations. Especially lawyers fighting against your disability claims.

[–] PsychedSy 1 points 5 months ago

RA and my wrists are kind of similar, but it's not all in the same direction. I can push shit around half the day and be fine. Two hours of sanding and I can't button my pants for two days.

The knee pain got worse throughout the day, but always rest at night. No clue why my wrists don't, the janky fucks.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You also shouldn’t be doing things that exacerbate it as well. If she has a nagging back injury, nothing good would ever come from throwing a christmas tree, but future further pain. She was caught doing stuff she shouldn’t have been, and likely wasn’t going to therapy either. Theres more to the story.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (4 children)

So let's just stay in bed the rest of our lives and not try to live a normal life. It's absolute bullshit that insurance is allowed to shirk their obligations by pretending be investigative journalist or playing doctor.

If you want to dispute a claim, it should be an independent medical panel pf doctors. Not just photos on a website or social media.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

No doctor would recommend doing this if you have a nagging back injury.

There is some stuff you can’t enjoy when you are sick or injured, fact of life, sorry. No reason she couldn’t watch and enjoy, or go ice skating instead, lots of options. She choose something that would injure her back, full stop.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

And maybe don't do that stuff anyway while you have an insurance claim ongoing.

[–] Kecessa 8 points 5 months ago

There's a major difference between doing low impact activities like going on walks or riding a bike/recumbent and throwing fucking trees.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Well, she could hold off on tree throwing until after her claim goes through, perhaps.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

LOL living a normal life as a Christmas tree throwing champion.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Even if she was trying to fleece the insurance, which I don't think she was, I find it insane that we are so upset that someone may possibly get something she doesn't deserve that we are okay with creating a system where so many who do need it are refused.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

If doing something like this would put you out work for a week to month, maybe don’t do it? How is your back supposed to heal and get better if you never actually rest like you’re supposed to?

You can argue being able to live you life and all that, but yeah, don’t do stuff that will hurt even healthy people and than cry foul and blame something/somebody else and fleece them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I think you missed my point. I never said she should or shouldn't have done something that could exacerbate her injury. I'm saying that even if she was a total scam artist, I would rather some scam artists get money they don't deserve than use that as a basis to block those that absolutely do need it from getting any help.

Any assistance or insurance program is going to have some grifters and a well run one will already be factoring that into how the program is designed and funded.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Herein lies the problem, even people that aren’t faking it, still shouldn’t be doing something like this. Most healthy people would Injure themselves attempting this.

[–] darth_helmet 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It’s the welfare-queen strategy: if you can show that 995/1000 people use a safety net as intended, 50% of voters can be convinced that it’s a fraud-soaked boondoggle

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

THEY get something given to them!??!? NO WAY, NOT UNLESS ITS FOR ME TOO

-Sincerely, dumb people who can't put themselves in anyone elses shoes. The world revolves around their life experience and nothing else.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Rich just walk off with like a trillion in Covid relief money and we collectively shrug

[–] [email protected] 36 points 5 months ago (17 children)

I can tell you first hand that disability is not at all like this binary mentality. This was a major injustice to what disability is really like. It reflects how stupid people really are and a judge that should be disbarred. Today is my 10 year anniversary of the day I was disabled by an idiot driver. I could likely toss a tree like this if I tried. It might cost me a few weeks of not sleeping more than 2 hours, but it is my right to take such a risk if I choose. Only stupid people view disability as a binary state. There are levels of misery and limitations you can not fathom. I can't hold posture for long. You can't imagine how miserable that really is. I can't sit up. Laying down most of the time is awful. Simply getting dressed and driving anywhere takes longer than my sustainable limits and pushing past those limits means I will need several days to weeks before I can get back to my standard level of inadequate sleep I have experienced for 10 years now.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Well said. Most disabilities are not obvious if you're just viewing someone for a minute or in this case, even less. Someone could be able to walk 1000 feet but need a wheelchair to travel a mile.

Also Christmas trees are not heavy? My great grandma could probably toss one if she needed to and she's 97 and also couldn't work pretty much any job.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

A local insurance company tried to deny a claim because the person was "caught" horseback riding. As if sitting on a horse on a flat trail is some kind of extreme physical activity.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Who cares, maybe she decided to do something stupid, the doctors should be the ones deciding whether her claim is legitimate or not

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

She used her car wreck claim from the year prior as a way to get disability payments. It's right there in the short article.

Car wreck in 2017. Tree throwing contest in 2018.

The court had previously been told that the married mother-of-two, from Ennis in Co Clare, had spoken to doctors days after winning the Christmas tree-throwing contest.

She had claimed that she could no longer lift a heavy bag without suffering a shooting pain. Grabska quit her job and received disability payments, the court heard.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


A woman’s £650,000 claim for injuries allegedly suffered during a car crash has been thrown out of court in Ireland after she was pictured winning a Christmas tree-throwing competition.

However, the woman’s claim was thrown out by a high court judge in Limerick after a photograph came to light showing Grabska throwing a 5ft spruce at a charity event in January 2018.

The picture was published in a national newspaper and, while Grabska argued that she was still suffering from her injuries, Justice Carmel Stewart dismissed her claim in part due to the “graphic nature” of the image.

The court had previously been told that the married mother-of-two, from Ennis in Co Clare, had spoken to doctors days after winning the Christmas tree-throwing contest.

Her legal claim against the insurance company was for the loss of past and future earnings, with Grabksa saying she was unable to leave her bed for up to half a day at times.

The judge ultimately dismissed her case, ruling that Grabska’s behaviour after the collision was “completely at odds” with the claims she had made in relation to her injuries.


The original article contains 388 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 52%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Like when your kid fakes being sick to stay home from school then 20 minutes after the school bus goes by they’re running around playing. Can’t keep up the lie for 20 minutes. Imagine having to manage a lie for years.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Whom amongst us can resist the temptation to throw a Christmas tree?

[–] crazyCat 14 points 5 months ago

I cannot. When given the chance, I yeet tree.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Nah more like some insurance company gave a big pile of money to some so-called judge and they decided to go through multiple years of footage to find a single thing they could use.

Having chronic pain doesn't mean you are in bed all day wishing for death. It doesn't mean you can do nothing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I love all the corporate bootlickers in this thread

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