Canadian woman disabled by flying puck to testify
A Nova Scotia woman left severely disabled after being hit in the head with a puck at a hockey game will be allowed to testify, despite cognitive and language deficiencies, when her negligence lawsuit goes to trial, the Chronicle Herald reported Friday.
The paper said a ruling by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court rejected a motion by the operator of the hockey arena to keep Louitta Fisher from testifying at the trial in Nova Scotia Supreme Court Nov. 1.
Fisher was sitting in the stands at the West Colchester Arena in Debert, about 68 miles north of Halifax, in 1996 when a puck flew off the ice, ricocheted off a beam and struck her on the side of the head, breaking an artery, the paper said.
Fisher, a 27-year-old newlywed at the time, spent three months in a coma and was unable to walk or talk when she awakened.
The paper said that according to medical records, Fisher communicates by nodding her head, tapping her foot and using a message board her family devised.
A lawyer for the recreation association argued that comprehension and speech losses would make it impossible for her to effectively communicate evidence to the jury and would preclude any sort of cross-examination.
She has alleged the recreation association was negligent by failing to safeguard spectators with proper netting or screening. She also claimed the arena operator failed to warn her of the danger of sitting in "the upper, unprotected rows of seats" and actually encouraged her to sit there by providing heat in that section, the paper said.
