A violent blow to your head is likely to result in a traumatic brain injury. It is the kind of injury that affects the normal functioning of your brain. TBIs are pretty common in car and sports accidents. Fortunately, you can fully recover with early intervention and quality medical treatment. You could recover total compensation for a traumatic brain injury that occurred due to another party’s negligence. Nevada personal injury laws provide a detailed guideline you could follow to obtain the compensation you deserve. You can also benefit from the help and guidance of an experienced Las Vegas personal injury attorney for a smooth and more successful outcome.
Traumatic Brain Injuries — Overview
You are likely to incur a TBI if you experience a direct violent blow to your head. It could also result from an object penetrating your brain tissue, like a bullet or sharp knife. Traumatic brain injuries can be mild or severe. A mild injury will only temporarily affect your brain cells. It is easy to treat and quick to recover. But a more severe injury could result from torn brain tissues, bruising, and any other damage to your brain. Severe brain injuries are expensive to treat and could take a more extended period to heal completely. Sadly, some are fatal.
Thus, it is necessary to seek immediate medical help after being involved in any type of accident, whether a car, sports accident, or a slip-and-fall. No one can tell for sure the extent of their damages until a proper medical examination is conducted. If you have received a severe blow to your head in the accident, let your doctor know once you are at the ER. Medical doctors are aware of the seriousness of brain injuries and how fast they can escalate if they are not treated on time. Thus, your doctor will conduct a medical examination immediately.
It is difficult to tell that you have incurred a traumatic brain injury right after an accident. But you could notice some psychological and physical symptoms. Some symptoms like dizziness, temporary loss of consciousness, and memory loss could occur immediately after the accident. Other, more severe symptoms could manifest so much later.
Some of the most common physical signs you shouldn’t ignore after an accident are headaches, fatigue, and loss of balance. Watch out for sensory symptoms, too, like blurred vision and a bad taste in the mouth. Sometimes you could experience cognitive and behavioral changes like confusion and difficulties in sleeping.
The nature and severity of TBI symptoms depend on the nature of the injury itself and the gravity of the impact. Here are some accidents that are likely to result in traumatic brain injuries:
A Fall
It could be a fall from a ladder, bed, bathroom, down the stairs, or a slip-and-fall on a wet floor or uneven ground. Anyone can be affected, including children and adults.
Vehicle Accidents
You could also incur a TBI in a vehicle-related accident. It could be a collision involving cars, bicycles, motorcycles, or pedestrians.
Sports Injuries
You could incur a traumatic brain injury in your favorite sport, including boxing, soccer, lacrosse, baseball, hockey, skateboarding, and any other extreme or high-impact sport.
Violence-Related Situations
TBIs are also common with people who have experienced violence, whether young or old. It could occur due to domestic violence, gunshot wound, assault, and child abuse. Violent shaking of infants is also likely to result in TBI.
Recovering Damages After TBI
If you incur a TBI as a personal injury, Nevada personal injury laws allow you to pursue compensation from the responsible party. Damages to the head are usually unpredictable, and they mainly result in devastation. As a result, the injured incur significant losses as they seek treatment and management after the injury. Compensatory damages ensure that you have enough money for your medical and other needs resulting from the injury. It could be lost job opportunities during the recovery period or the lost ability to perform in your current work environment.
However, you must first demonstrate that someone else was responsible for the accident that caused your TBI. It could be a driver, motorcyclist/bicyclist, manufacturer, or even an employer. Negligence is a crucial factor in Nevada personal injury cases. If another party’s negligence caused a person severe injuries to their head, the negligent party would be held responsible for the resulting damages.
That is why you must first establish whether the accident was a result of another person’s negligence. To do that, determine the cause of the accident. Was it a slippery floor that did not bear a warning? Or faulty equipment at work? If you were involved in a devastating road accident, you would like to establish the cause of the accident and whether or not it could have been prevented. Maybe the other driver was intoxicated or a little distracted. Or the accident involved an exhausted truck driver who was working beyond his/her hours of operation.
In most road accidents, the police conduct an in-depth investigation to establish the cause of the accident. From their report, you should know whether or not anyone was responsible for your TBI.
Motorists owe everyone on the road a duty of care. If a particular driver was reckless, you need sufficient evidence to demonstrate that he/she breached that duty of care, and their actions directly resulted in your injuries.
It is difficult to tell the cause of an accident by merely studying an accident scene. That is why accident experts are involved in cases like these. You might need legal help to ensure that you have access to expert services like these. Building a solid case against the negligent party becomes easier when you have sufficient evidence to support your claims.
Damages to Recover after a Traumatic Brain Injury
You are likely to incur all kinds of damages after a traumatic brain injury. The nature of your losses will depend on the type of accident you were involved in. a severe injury to the brain will have more damages than a minor TBI. here are some of the damages you might include in your claim after a traumatic brain injury:
Medical Expenses
Medical costs are the first damages you incur after a personal injury in Nevada. You will need to be treated for your physical injuries. It means that you will start to incur these costs immediately after the accident.
Medical expenses will include the services you receive at the emergency room, the doctor’s fee, diagnosis, and costs of all tests you will undergo to determine the nature and extent of your head injuries. It will also include the medications you will receive, your stay in the hospital, and any aftercare you will need until complete recovery.
Some traumatic brain injuries cost more to treat than others. Therefore, it is necessary to document every cost you incur after the accident to ensure you have sufficient evidence of the exact amount of money you deserve in compensation.
Expected Future Medical Costs
Some traumatic brain injuries will take time to heal. It means that you might want to consider the costs you will incur in the future before full recovery. Your doctor can provide a detailed report showing the extent of your injuries and how long it could take for you to recover. He/she will also provide details of the kind of treatment you might need in the future and approximately how much money it might cost you to recover fully.
If your doctor feels that you might never fully recover from your injuries, he/she will include details of medical management you might need to live a close-to-normal life with your brain injury.
Occupational and Physical Therapy
Most people who incur injuries to their brains require rehabilitative care to live the same quality of life they enjoyed before the injury. If your injury has affected your range of motion, movement or decreased your strength, physical therapy will help restore all that. Then you can go back to the life you lived before the accident. Occupational therapy will help restore your lost motor skills, and then you can perform your day-to-day tasks as you did before the accident. Rehabilitative care could be part of the treatment your doctor will recommend to promote full recovery after a TBI. The severity of your injury will determine how long you will need rehabilitation.
Short- or Long-Term Care
Severe injuries to the brain might affect your ability to care for yourself or your children (if you have any). If you are your children’s primary caregiver, they will need someone to care for them while in the hospital and even after your discharge.
Some people suffer paralysis, mental and other physical problems after TBI. It means that you will need care before you can fully recover from your injuries. The extent of your injuries will determine how long you will need care. It could be for a few days, weeks, months, or even years.
Lost Wages
You might need to take a break from work to first recover from your TBI. it means that you will not be earning money during your recovery period. Thus your damages must include your lost wages, up until you can work and earn a living.
If your injuries were not severe, you might return to work after a few days or weeks. But people who incur severe TBIs need a little more time before going back to gainful employment. You need compensation for your lost wages to cater to your day-to-day financial needs and those of your dependants.
Lost Earning Ability
A severe brain injury could affect how you perform your tasks at home or in your work environment. That could cause you to become unproductive in your current employment, and you might eventually lose your job. You may not engage in gainful employment without an earning ability and cannot cater to your dependants’ basic necessities. That is why you deserve compensation for your lost earning capacity if another person’s negligence caused your traumatic brain injury. Compensation could help you master a new skill or ability to perform in another work environment from where you can earn a living.
Pain and Suffering
You could also include non-economic damages like pain and suffering in your compensation claim. Sometimes the suffering and pain a person undergoes after an accident goes unnoticed. You may not evaluate how much suffering and pain you incurred after your injury, but the judge might award compensation depending on how intense your suffering was after the accident. Compensation will include any expected suffering and pain in the future. Your personal injury attorney could help convince the court how much you suffered after the accident and how you continue to suffer even after treatment.
Reduced or Lost Functioning
You might include this damage in your claim if your injury caused you to lose the functioning of one or more parts of your body. For instance, if you suffered paralysis as a result, did you recover the entire functioning of the affected parts after treatment? Some people lose the whole functioning of their body parts like their limbs or organs like the eye or ear. Others do not recover the entire functioning of the affected parts and might live like that for the rest of their lives.
Have a Specific Amount in Mind
When preparing a compensation claim after a TBI, it is crucial to come up with a rough estimate of the total compensation you deserve. Thus, you might need the help of an experienced personal injury attorney to ensure that you have it correct.
Start by listing down all your losses and an estimated amount of money you deserve in compensation for those damages. It is easy to estimate the actual cost of all your economic damages because each of them has a dollar value attached. For instance, your medical expenses will be easy to calculate from all the receipts and medical records you have kept from the first day you sought treatment for your injury. Your doctor will also provide a rough estimate of how much it will cost you to continue treatment until full recovery.
Your lost wages are calculated according to your current earnings. You might want to consider how much more time you need to remain in the hospital or home until you return to work.
Generally, economic damages are easy to estimate from the current cost. But you might have needed the help of an experienced personal injury attorney to determine what you could include in your claim for non-monetary damages like suffering and pain.
The judge might decide to award you more compensation in punitive damages, depending on the nature of the accident in which you were injured. For instance, if the court learns that the alleged defendant was grossly negligent in causing your TBI, you might receive punitive damages in addition to your other damages.
Do Not Be Quick to Accept The First Offer
Sometimes civil cases could drag on for years before you can recover compensation for your damages. Thus, you could be tempted to accept the first compensation the responsible party offers to settle the case out of court quickly. It is advisable to take time before you accept a deal, especially from the insurance company. Insurance companies will try every trick available to deny your claim or offer less compensation than you deserve.
An experienced personal injury attorney will ensure that this does not happen. Your attorney will handle all negotiations on your behalf. He/she will know when the deal is good or not good and will act accordingly.
Engage an Experienced Personal Injury Attorney
Nevada personal injury laws are complex. You need adequate legal help to successfully navigate the legal system and receive the compensation you deserve for your TBI. An experienced attorney will know where to begin, what to do and not do along the way, and how to prepare your claim to receive the compensation you deserve.
The legal process becomes easy and more successful when you have the correct legal help. Therefore, you might consider hiring an experienced personal injury attorney from the start of the process.
Additionally, your attorney will ensure you have sufficient evidence to support your claim. He/she will gather and prepare all the documents you need to strengthen your case against the responsible party. Your attorney will be right by your side during the most challenging period of your life. He/she will protect your rights and ensure that your best interests are served.
Find a Competent Personal Injury Attorney Near Me
If you have incurred a traumatic brain injury in Las Vegas, it might help to seek the help of an experienced personal injury attorney in claiming the compensation you deserve. Your attorney will handle all the legal processes on your behalf as you concentrate on recovery. At Las Vegas Personal Injury Attorney Law Firm, our team of competent attorneys is always ready with the skills and tools you need to succeed in your situation. Call us at 702-996-1224, and let's fight together for the compensation you deserve.
