Are You Looking for an Accident Attorney?
It has been one month since your world your flipped upside down. And while in some ways it seems like the skateboarding accident just happened, you find yourself celebrating a miracle four weeks after the call saying you needed to get to the hospital. Your son has been given a dismissal date from the rehab center where he has been the last two weeks.
As you plan to move hime home and again be a family all under the same roof, you continue to remind yourself how lucky your son and your family are. Within an hour of the accident you and your spouse were making some very tough decisions with the brain surgeon. Without surgery, your son would surely have died. With surgery, however, the possibilities were still grim. With a break in the C1 vertebra and the amount of brain swelling that was occurring, the doctor was making no promises. The decision to operate, however, paid off and the medical and rehabilitation staff keep coming by the room to see this medical miracle walking with assistance, and talking again. The remaining progress is huge, but after crossing these initial hurdles, anything seems possible.
This next phase includes outpatient rehabilitation, which will involve physical, occupational, psycho and speech therapies for many months to come. Your son will also start back to school next week as a part-time student to finish out his first year in high school year. He will still have many CT scans, x-rays, and neurosurgeon check ups. The list of people to thank is long, but one name keeps coming up both in your conversations and your caller ID: your attorney.
While you busied yourself with the care of your entire family and your son in particular, your attorney took care of many details. The crash was technically an accident, but the poor quality of the pavement and the speed of the driver who ran a stop sign were contributing factors. While you were not looking for someone to blame, you were hopeful that someone might be able to help cover the cost of the mounting medical bills.
A Brain Injury Attorney Can Help Patients Afford the Care That They Need
An estimated 1.7 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI) every year. Of those injured, 52,000 die, 275,000 are hospitalized, and. 1.365 million, nearly 80%, are treated and eventually released from an emergency department. The bills from these emergency rooms and long term rehabilitation centers are enormous. Without an attorney, in fact, families often spend everything they have trying to afford the care that their loved one needs. A brain injury lawyer may be able to help families cover the cost of the expensive needed care.
Consider the following statistics about brain injuries:
- Falls are the leading cause of TBIs.
- Children between the ages of zero and four and adults over 75 years are the most likely to fall and suffer a TBI.
- Falls result in the greatest number of TBI-related emergency department visits at 523,043.
- Falls result in the greatest number of TBI-related hospitalizations at 62,334.
- Motor vehicle and traffic accidents are the leading cause of deaths that result from TBI.
- Rates of TBI deaths from car accidents are highest among adults ages 20 to 24.
Brain injury treatments and surgeries are expensive and while the family is looking out for the care of the individual, many families find that it is helpful to have an attorney help with the legal implications.