The place and time of a tick bite must be clear for a service accident

OVG Münster: Policeman owed evidence
If a police officer suffers a tick bite, he must be able to assign the attack of the bloodsucker locally and temporally for the recognition as a service accident. Only if the official proves that the tick bite was sustained during the service, could there be a civil casualty, ruled on Wednesday, 19 July 2017, the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) North Rhine-Westphalia in Münster (Ref .: 3 A 2748/15).

In early summer temperatures ticks are particularly attacking. Therefore, it now depends on the right protection. (Image: stockWERK / fotolia.com)

This proof was owed to the plaintive policeman. The man was assigned to night duty on September 14, 2013. He took showers outside of his shift without identifying any peculiarities in his body. During his work, he witnessed a car get off the road and come to a halt in a dense area.

The policeman hurried to help the driver and stayed longer in the area. When he showered after the end of the shift, he noticed a thickening in the back coccyx area. Only four days later he discovered a tick.

The parasite is notorious for not only transmitting the viruses responsible for meningitis, the so-called tick-borne encephalitis. Also so-called Borreliose bacteria can get into the human with the tick bite and lead to numerous symptoms such as fever, heart problems or in the late stages of Lyme disease to joint inflammation.

The police officer wanted to have recognized the tick bite as a service accident.

But for the recognition as a service accident must be clear that the tick bite was actually suffered during the service, the OVG ruled. Here is the tick bite "not locally and temporally determinable". The policeman may have suffered this before or after the service. The recognition as a service accident is therefore not possible. fle