If you are involved in a car accident, your life and health can suddenly take a change for the worse. Although insurance and medical care are in place to mitigate and eliminate the chances of sustaining serious long-term injuries, you have to seek medical care immediately to effectuate these remedies. If you wait too long to seek help, the insurance company will use this as leverage to try and decrease the value of your claim.
Severe car accidents typically have ambulances and emergency care on the scene. People can expect severe injuries after a serious crash and will have resources there to obtain medical care. However, there are many car accidents where the extent of the injuries or manifestation can be delayed by hours, days, weeks, or months.
The onset of injury symptoms may be delayed where there are no broken bones or noticeable defects. If soft tissue is damaged; such as ligaments, tendons, and muscles; it can take hours for the endorphins and adrenaline to wear off before you feel pain.
Endorphins are your body’s natural painkillers that kick in to help you deal with emergency situations and worry about healing later. Adrenaline also kicks in to help you deal with emergencies and has even been known to help mothers rescue children trapped under vehicles by providing them with superhuman strength.
You can also have injuries that take time to manifest because they are neurological in nature or are due to inflammation. As the inflammatory signals build-up, this can cause tissues to swell and also put pressure on nerve cells.
Inflammation in the brain is very common and the cause of many neurological conditions. This is because a car accident often causes the brain to bounce around inside the skull. It may cause minor symptoms, such as dizziness, at first and then progress into more serious conditions if the swelling continues.
Whiplash is the most common injury that can occur at even speeds that are as low as five miles per hour. Whiplash symptoms and these other symptoms are hard to detect because they do not show up on any X-rays or other diagnostic tests. MRI scans and other tests may be needed to confirm internal brain trauma. The attention of a neurologist may be the only way to confirm neurological problems related to the accident.
The Consequences of Delaying Treatment
The further that you go without treatment, the harder it becomes to prove your claims and to receive full compensation. Under the law of torts, it is fundamental that an injured victim take reasonable steps to mitigate injuries caused by others. If they do not, they may find that their compensation is substantially diminished using a theory called comparative negligence.
When Should You See a Doctor?
You should obtain immediate medical attention following an accident in nearly every case. Unless your vehicle was parked and someone bumped into it at a very low speed, you should get checked out. This is because speeds in car accidents can be misleading.
Even a low-speed impact can be serious because the speed is calculated using the rate of speed from each vehicle. Therefore, if you were doing 10 miles per hour and the other driver was doing 11, this would still add up to 21 miles per hour.
Furthermore, when you consider how drunk drivers have been less likely to sustain serious injuries in car accidents, the concentrated pressure is also a huge factor. Because most motorists will brace themselves when they feel an impact, the shock wave pressures of the accident transfer into the points of resistance the hardest.
When the forces are distributed evenly throughout the body, like when a drunk driver is bouncing around and relaxed, it minimizes the impact on specific cells and limits damage. It can be difficult to measure how these principles work. Nevertheless, you can imagine how easy it is to drive a nail through a board compared to a square block. By concentrating the pressure in one area, it is much easier to damage cells and inflict trauma.
Check the Medical Records for Accuracy
Even if you do the smart thing and get immediate medical attention following an accident, you may still be cheated out of your compensation if the medical records are inaccurate. You have to be sure that the medical records support and reflect the narrative of your case.
If you are claiming that you were injured on your left shoulder by the seatbelt, you want to make sure that the records accurately specify that your left shoulder was injured. You also want to make sure that the notes reflect your statement regarding the accident and the cause of it.
The opposing counsel for the insurance company is going to get these medical records when you file a lawsuit. If there are any discrepancies, they are going to pounce on them to undermine the legitimacy and/or value of your claim.
You also have to be wary of past medical records that allude to injuries in the same regions or similar symptoms. If you have experienced any spells of dizziness or back pain in the past, the insurance companies will try to portray your current symptoms as an ongoing problem from a previous accident rather than something attributable to the defendant.
Contact Us
When you are injured in a car accident, it is important to have experienced attorneys on your side. Bodden & Bennett Law Group is a personal injury law group that is located in Boynton Beach, Florida. Our attorneys know all the little technical details and defensive tricks that insurance companies like to pull. Trust our experienced team to sustain your liability theory and to work hard for maximum concentration.
