Cowlitz County

By: Capital Injury Law

How Can a Brain Injury Attorney Help You?

Brain injuries can have expensive and lifelong consequences for victims. But which brain injury victims can file a lawsuit and recover compensation for their injuries? If you qualify to take legal action, you will need to contact a Lacey personal injury attorney at once.

If you sustain a brain injury (TBI) in a car accident, a construction accident, or any other accident caused by another person’s negligence, you have the right to compensation for your current and future medical expenses, your lost wages and projected future lost wages, and more.

Keep reading this brief introduction to traumatic brain injuries (TBI), and you will learn more about your rights, how to recover compensation after a brain injury, and how a Lacey brain injury attorney will protect your rights and fight for justice on your behalf.

What Causes Brain Injuries?

An injury to the brain can be caused by a bump, jolt, or blow to the head or by an object that penetrates the skull. The severity of a brain injury ranges from mild to severe. Concussions, for example, are considered mild because concussions are rarely life-threatening.

TBIs can be the result of slip- or trip-and-fall incidents, swimming pool accidents, sports accidents, assaults, and may also be caused by using defective consumer items. When someone else is negligent, and the result is a traumatic brain injury, the victim may recover compensation.

Traumatic brain injury

Over a million TBI patients are treated at hospital ERs every year in the U.S. The Centre for Neuro Skills® tells us that mild brain injuries may cost $85,000, while a moderate TBI may surpass $900,000, and a severe brain injury may cost a victim more than $3 million.

What Will Happen If You Suffer a Brain Injury?

If you suffer a traumatic brain injury, or if your doctor suspects that you are a TBI victim, you will likely be referred to a neurosurgeon, and brain scans may be ordered to determine the extent of your injury.

If you undergo surgery, it may be only the beginning of long-term treatment that could include more surgeries and therapy. If you were injured because another person was negligent, a Lacey brain injury attorney will work to recover the maximum available compensation for you.

What Are the Signs and Symptoms of a Brain Injury?

A full recovery is not uncommon after a mild or moderate brain injury, but other victims will suffer with a traumatic brain injury for life. TBI can impact someone’s balance, vision, hearing, memory, thinking, and sleep patterns along with attitudes, moods, and emotions.

TBI victims can be reticent or impulsive and talkative or withdrawn. A traumatic brain injury may cause irritability, depression, mood swings, or even aggressiveness.

Traumatic brain injury

A TBI victim must adhere to doctor’s orders and be truthful. Disclose your complete medical history and any other pertinent details about yourself and your medical condition to your doctor.

Why Is a Medical Exam Imperative?

Brain injuries may be latent and difficult to detect. After any serious accident, obtain an examination within 24 hours.

If you’ve sustained a latent brain injury, an immediate examination can verify that the injury happened in a specific accident and did not happen at another time and place. Without an immediate medical exam, a latent brain injury could quickly become a serious medical condition.

You will also need the documentation from that medical exam if you move forward with legal action. Without that documentation, the party that injured you may claim you were actually injured in some other manner or that you’re not injured at all.

How Will a Brain Injury Attorney Handle Your Case?

TBI victims who sustain the most serious injuries regularly prevail when they bring a personal injury claim. However, if the injury is mild or moderate, and if your prognosis is uncertain, it will probably be more challenging to succeed with an injury claim.

In either case, if a traumatic brain injury was caused by another person’s negligence, the victim will need to be advised and represented by a Lacey personal injury attorney. Your attorney will investigate what led to the accident that injured you and will determine how you were injured.

Your attorney will review the pertinent documents – your medical exam, any photos or video, and any insurance documents or police reports. Your attorney will also question any witnesses and may ask for assistance from a medical expert or an accident reconstruction specialist.

How Are Most Brain Injury Cases Resolved?

After identifying the party with liability for your brain injury, your attorney will negotiate privately with that party’s attorney in an effort to recover a generous settlement amount on your behalf. That’s how most injury claims are resolved in Washington State.

However, if your claim is disputed or denied, your Washington personal injury attorney will take your claim to trial, explain to a jury how you were injured and the extent of your brain injury, and ask that jury to order the payment of your compensation.

In Washington State, the statute of limitations gives you three years from the date of a personal injury to initiate legal action, but you should not wait three years – or even three weeks after a brain injury – to speak with a brain injury attorney.

Traumatic brain injury

Your attorney needs to examine the evidence while it’s fresh and question any witnesses before their memories fade. If you’ve missed the deadline, you should still speak to an attorney. It’s unlikely, but there may be an exception that would allow your case to be heard.

What Will It Cost to Retain an Attorney’s Services?

A brain injury can put you out of work for months, years, or even permanently. While you’re injured, your medical bills will mount up alongside your normal monthly obligations. How can a brain injury victim afford an attorney’s help?

Personal injury lawyers in Washington State work on a contingent fee basis, meaning that your fee is contingent upon your claim prevailing. You’ll pay no fee to a personal injury lawyer until and unless that lawyer recovers compensation on your behalf.

Your first consultation with a brain injury attorney is also free and entails no obligation. If you and your attorney can prove your claim, the law will be on your side, and you will be compensated for your medical expenses, lost wages, pain, suffering, and related damages.

Injured victims of negligence have the legal right to a lawyer’s help. If you suffer a traumatic brain injury in the Lacey, Olympia, or Tacoma area, and if another person’s negligence caused that injury, exercise your rights and contact a Washington State personal injury lawyer at once.

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