Without any doubt, brain injuries change lives forever. Even mild brain injuries where someone can make a complete recovery will derail months, if not years of life. These injuries happen most often in traffic accidents, abuse, unexpected physical trauma such as sports injuries, and gunshot wounds or assault. Orange County brain injury lawyers often face off against panels of attorneys and high-powered insurance companies in many of those situations.
Almost all brain injuries arise out of some act of negligence. Under California law, people can seek out legal action if they’ve experienced injuries as a result of any type of negligence, including carelessness. It doesn’t matter if the other driver who caused the accident didn’t intend to hit your vehicle. The part that does matter is that even for a second, they put other people’s lives in danger, and people were hurt as a result of their actions.
Concussions, Whiplash, Closed Head Injuries, and More
Most brain injuries do qualify for the label of a traumatic brain injury. Even whiplash can come with traumatic brain injury. One thing that does stand out for all types of brain injury is that all of them are very serious injuries. Although clearly, some brain injuries are more severe than others, there is no such thing as a mild bit of brain trauma.
Whiplash, for example, can often result in a TBI. The change in force and motion often causes the soft tissues of the neck to take the blunt end of the damage, but the brain can sustain damage during whiplash as well.
Concussions are another extremely common form of brain injury. Although many people consider concussions as a mild injury, concussions are still trauma injuries that can result in permanent or long-term damage. There’s a lot of awareness around the risks and long-term effects of concussions through studying sports injuries. However, those who experience concussions in car accidents are at the same risk as those who experienced a concussion during football practice.
Closed head injuries include a variety of sub-categorized brain trauma. They can include a contusion, which is a bruise on the brain, coup contrecoup, which involves violent shaking of the brain, shearing or separation, and hematoma. All of these are severe and require immediate medical attention. However, these all fall under the same category because, in these cases the skull is definitely intact, and the scalp may be intact as well. There may be no physical indicator of brain trauma from looking at the person’s head.
Open head injuries however are instances of apparent trauma. Most open head injuries are severe, and most involve penetration of an object such as a bullet or other weapon.
Causes of Brain Injuries and Symptoms
Any number of Orange County brain injury lawyers will agree that brain injuries can occur from the most unexpected accidents. The most common causes of brain injuries are motor vehicle accidents, falls, sports injuries, and then violence.
Unfortunately for many victims, the symptoms of brain injuries are subtle and they don’t often appear immediately. Some injuries such as a concussion are easily identifiable. The person lost consciousness, it’s highly likely that they have a concussion. However, other injuries such as contusion may present symptoms such as headache, mildly blurred vision, personality changes, confusion, and trouble with memory. These symptoms may show up over the course of weeks or months. Additionally, doctors have trouble working with brain injury symptoms because many of them involve slow changes over time that a doctor would not notice. A doctor cannot reliably identify personality changes. However, close friends and family can.
More severe symptoms of brain injuries often indicate a more severe brain injury. Outright vision problems, seizures, and trouble speaking or swallowing are signs of significant brain trauma. Other severe symptoms include difficulty forming sentences, difficulty with logic, and difficulty is balancing.
How Can Orange County Brain Injury Lawyers Help During Recovery?
If you’re looking to pursue compensation for the medical damages, harm, pain and suffering, and lost wages in a civil lawsuit. It is possible that you might have the opportunity to resolve this through an insurance claim. In cases of brain injury, even when there is an insurance policy available such as an auto insurance policy, the victim may need to take additional civil action if the policy maxes out. Additionally, even if there is an insurance policy involved, brain injury cases are complex and can go to court.
Orange County brain injury lawyers help victims by taking the reins with their claim or case. They are responsible for ensuring proper and open communication with the other party’s attorney or insurance provider. These lawyers are also responsible for handling evidence, compiling statements, handling negotiations, and assessing damages.
One element that a brain injury attorney could help with is the awareness of recent changes in legislation. California had a change and personal injury or tort law recently. Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed a reform that prohibits reducing damages regarding lost future earnings because of personal injury or wrongful death associated with factors such as race and ethnicity.
Orange County Brain Injury Lawyers Do a Lot to Support Victims
In many situations the victims of car accidents, sports injuries, and even violent crime are often forgotten. Car accidents are often brushed off and viewed as an insurance problem. While sports injuries are often downplayed and depicted as the player’s risk. at the same time, even victims of violent crime can get lost and the media maelstrom. The trouble is that all of these victims deserve and advocate for their benefit.
Orange County brain injury lawyers frequently deliver specific elements of a claim that victims wouldn’t know how to accomplish alone. Negotiating for a better settlement, or deciding whether it’s better to go to court or take a settlement are issues that many people don’t do frequently. Additionally, the victim may be overwhelmed with doctor’s appointments and adjusting to their new normal and not want to pursue negotiations on their own. Our team at TorkLaw offers this degree of support and aims to help victims throughout their recovery.