Why is my disability being denied by the Navy board?

Question

 

I served US Navy, 1969-1977, in 1979 I was working on a barge over the side of my ship, one of my ships 2 Sonar systems, and both my hands had every bone broken in both of them. (a fast boat sped past the ship as I was working, lifting the barge and crushing both hands with 500 pounds rocking back and forth on my hands, pinned to the barge), my Navy doctor advised me that when I got older my hands would give me problems. last year I filed for disability on my hands and hearing. my hearing is about 60% gone in one ear and 40% in the other and both are only correctable to 80% of normal. both of my hands have arthritis in them and fail to hold things like a coffee cup without dropping one every few days, and if I use anything for more than a few minutes (like a screwdriver) then my hands cramp and will not hold the tool. The NAVY board reviewed me for both and first stated neither was due to being in the Navy. if you have ever slept in the bow of a ship for several years with a sonar transducer pinging all night and also working on high pressure hydraulics, moving 5000+ pounds of sonar transducer to raise and lower the unit in the water, then you wouold understand my hearing being poor. as for my hands I do not understand how they can say the Navy is not responsible.

I was given a name and phone number in Indio, California to call to assist in filing a re-evaluation, but they never answer the phone or return my messages, and now I have lost the phone number. please tell me what I can do and or who I can contact to continue

 

Jim's Reply

 

Well, to be honest, I see a bit of an issue. You say, "both my hands had every bone broken in both of them" and I'm not sure that's a believable statement to make. Your credibility is one of the more important factors you have going for you when you file a claim and if we embellish or overstate things we lose that and then our claim goes down.

 

If every bone in each hand were broken, you'd have almost certainly faced a medical discharge along with extensive treatment, probably surgery. You claim an extremely horrendous injury...do you have proof of that? If that happened there would be hospital service medical records. We could assume that had such a horrific injury happened to you that you would have suffered significant disability after service, as a civilian. We would assume that you would have records of treatments for those injuries since you were discharged.

 

If you didn't actually have "every bone broken in both" of your hands, you may have suffered some sort of short term injury that healed on its own? In most cases, if there aren't records it didn't happen.

And...as we get older, arthritis shows up in our hands.

 

Finally...you tell me you served from 1969 - 1977 and that you were injured in 1979. If you were inconsistent with dates and embellished what actually happened and didn't produce reasonably confirming evidence of the alleged event, denial was and is inevitable. From what you tell me you don't have a well grounded claim and if you wish to pursue it, you have some work to do.