A FORMER LIMERICK hurler, who says he was left with a painful frozen shoulder and damage to his hand because of a workplace accident at a Johnson & Johnson factory, went cycling for distances of up to 105K after undergoing surgery, the High Court has been told.

The court heard that efforts will be made tomorrow to mediate the case, which has heard three days of evidence so far.

Mark Keane, who is giving evidence in his personal injuries claim, has told the court that he was “not the man he was, nor the one he hoped to become” because of the injuries and felt “let down” by the famed multinational bluechip company.

Keane has told the High Court that ongoing injuries he sustained when he went to the rescue of a co-worker who caught his arm inside machinery in 2018 have left him feeling “emasculated and mentally destroyed”.

An accomplished hurler, Keane won three consecutive All-Irelands with Limerick under 21s between 2000 and 2002 and played senior from 2000 to 2006.

Keane has taken his case against Johnson & Johnson Vision (Ireland) over the incident that occurred in September 2018 at their plant in the National Technological Park, Plassey, Co Limerick.

The 43-year-old is alleging Johnson & Johnson were negligent and breached their duty of care towards him on September 10, 2018, while he was working as a technician making contact lenses.

Keane alleges the company failed to provide him with a safe place of work and a safe system of work and is seeking damages.

Keane’s lawyers, HOMS Assist, submit that this incident caused the plaintiff to suffer sustained, continuous and severe personal injury, as well as loss, damage, inconvenience and expense.

At the High Court today, Murray Johnson SC, for Johnson & Johnson, said the company “absolutely” accepted responsibility for the injury Keane suffered in the form of the nerve damage and injury to his right hand but did not accept responsibility for his claim of injury to his right shoulder.

In his cross examination of Keane, Johnson said the plaintiff had gone on 10-12 cycles of between 27 and 105 kilometres in the summer of 2019, despite the plaintiff’s claim that he had been in pain since the incident and could not raise his arm above his head.

Keane accepted he had gone cycling socially with friends to get out of the house for his mental health after the injury but said that he did not enter into any races. He said he cycled in June 2019 but has not done so since.

Keane said he had cycled on a racer bike, meaning that he was leaning forward, that gear changes were quickly done by a light flip-switch and that there had not been discomforting weight pressure on the handlebars.

Johnson said the first his clients knew of the complaint of shoulder pain, submitted by Keane, was in November of last year. “That was the first we heard of it,” he said.

Johnson said the first medical record of a shoulder pain complaint was not until November 2020, “two years and two months after the accident”.

Keane said he had informed doctors of shoulder, neck and hand injury but that it had been referred to as nerve pain in reports.

The plaintiff also told Mr Johnson that he had been in a sling “for the most part” of his time after the incident in September 2018 and before his February 2019 operation.

Johnson said the company had “suggested or offered” two positions to the plaintiff on a “trial or phased basis” so he could return to work to which Keane said: “I totally refute that. They were not offered as positions.”

Keane said his doctor discounted one position on medical grounds and that he had done an interview for the second role but never heard back from the company.

Before the cross-examination was completed, at around 2pm today (Tuesday), Johnson said that his side had previously made an offer of mediation but received no response from Keane’s lawyers.

Mr Justice Paul Coffey said it was the policy of the court to promote mediation if it was likely to be effective and noted that there had been a long-standing relationship between the parties.

Mr Justice Coffey said a “third party might be very helpful in persuading the parties to move from their extreme positions”.

Both sides then arranged for mediation to be engaged in tomorrow morning, with the court available in the afternoon.

“There’s nothing to be lost,” said Mr Justice Coffey.