On average, more than 7,000 Americans are injured in car accidents every day. Whether major collisions, fender benders or those that fall somewhere in between, these accidents often take a heavy emotional, physical and financial toll on their victims.
Some of the most typical accident injuries include:
Whiplash. It’s the common name for muscle, ligament or tendon injuries to the soft tissue of the neck and occurs when the head is rapidly moved backward or forward and quickly “whipped” in the opposite direction.
Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI): More than 50,000 people die from TBI each year, while another 80,000-90,000 suffer long-term disability. Car accidents are the leading cause of TBI.
Back and Spinal Injuries: Including severe disk injury and cervical dislocation, they are not always immediately detected after a car accident. These injuries can often be serious and long-lasting.
Broken Bones: Broken arms, ribs, legs, wrists and ankles are common, with simple breaks requiring a cast and more compound fractures necessitating surgery.
Facial Injuries and Scars: Frequently caused by broken glass, these injuries may call for plastic surgery or other procedures.
Burns: Accident victims whose skin encounters hot fluids, steam or chemicals may suffer serious burns that require surgery and/or skin grafting.
What happens if you’re in an accident that was not your fault and you sustain serious injuries like those mentioned above? Your injuries could easily require you to miss several weeks of work. Your doctor’s appointments and physical therapy sessions are triggering huge medical costs. And your car repair bills are higher than you anticipated. What should you do?
An experienced personal injury attorney can be extremely helpful in getting the answers to these questions while making sure your rights are protected. Most of these attorneys work on a contingency basis, so they only get paid if your claim is resolved successfully. In other words, you won’t have to fork out money in advance just to have their help.
Many personal injury attorneys have an important experience that you lack, especially when it comes to collecting the evidence that you’ll need to receive your just compensation. This might include accessing police accident reports, witness statements, medical records and lost-wage analyses. And they can negotiate with the other driver’s insurance company and lawyers.
There are many kinds of damages that a victim of a car crash may be able to pursue, as an experienced attorney, like a car accident lawyer in Memphis, TN, from a firm like Patterson Bray can explain.