A MAN who was left fighting for his life due to injuries he sustained on the site of a new biomass power plant said he feels like he is in jail as he waits to receive compensation.

Dale Reed, from Pelton in County Durham, was working as a pipe layer on the new £160m Port Clarence Renewable Energy Plant in October last year, when he suffered life-changing injuries after cladding attached to the building came loose and fell onto him from a height of over 30 metres.

The incident has left Mr Reed – who was not usually based on that site and was only there for one day to cover leave – paralysed with a catalogue of further injuries including fractured bones throughout his body and organ damage.

Having been in James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough for over five months, doctors have deemed him as being medically fit to be discharged, although his own home is no longer suitable given his care needs.

However, he has been unable to secure the specially-adapted accommodation he requires due to a dispute over which of the companies working on the Port Clarence site is liable for the incident, meaning that no funding has yet been secured.

From his hospital bed and struggling to speak, Mr Reed – father to daughters Shannon and Karley and grandfather to three-year-old Finlay – said: “Every day is torture – my life feels like a jail sentence.

“Every day is exactly the same – I feel like I am stuck.”

Fiona Samms, his partner of over 30 years, has been forced to suspend her job as a care worker to be with Dale every day at his bedside.

“I think it’s absolutely disgraceful and disgusting,” she said.

“Clearly none of this is Dale’s fault, he hasn’t done anything wrong and was just there doing his job, but now we are forced to live with the consequences.

“It is horrible for him. He loved his job, but now he’ll never work again and it is devastating."

Ms Samms said she hopes getting out of hospital and getting back to the couple’s family home will help to pick him up.

“When our grandson comes to the hospital, he asks why granddad Dale can’t take him to see the horses like he always did at home.

“It is heartbreaking – we can only hope that whoever needs to admit liability does the right thing.”

John Davis, serious injury lawyer and consultant at Newcastle law firm Sintons, is acting on behalf of the family in trying to secure a settlement.

“After suffering such life-changing injuries in an incident that clearly was not his fault, it is particularly distressing for Dale and his family that no-one has yet admitted responsibility for their part in this,” he said.

“Dale’s case helps to highlight the devastating impact this kind of situation has on seriously injured people and families, at a time in their life when they need support more than ever,” he added.