Did you suffer a traumatic brain injury as a result of an accident in Fort Pierce, FL? Our experienced Fort Pierce traumatic brain injury lawyers at Shiner Law Group are ready to help fight for your legal rights and get the compensation you deserve. Call us today at (772) 979-6626 to speak with an attorney for a 100% free consultation.
You may be entitled to seek compensation for medical bills, loss of income, pain, and suffering, and more. Contact our Fort Pierce, FL law offices to discuss the legal options that might be available to you following your traumatic brain injury accident. The next steps are very important. Let Shiner Law Group help you with your traumatic brain accident case today.
Did You Suffer A Traumatic Brain Injury In Fort Pierce?
Being one of the most popular tourist states, accidents and injuries are very high in Florida. Among them, traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are the most serious and, unfortunately, one of the most common. When these types of accidents do occur you may need the assistance of a Fort Pierce traumatic brain injury lawyer.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), TBI is a leading cause of death and disability in the United States. According to the recent data, nearly 61,000 TBI-related deaths occurred in 2019, in which the majority included children and young adults.
Traumatic brain injury is a head injury characterized by destruction or dysfunction of the brain tissue caused by abrupt contact between the brain and skull. It presents a particular difficulty for forensic pathologists and jurists since there may be a mismatch between the severity of the trauma and the consequences (physical, intellectual, behavioral, neuropsychological).
Traumatic Brain Injuries have many specificities when it comes to compensation for road accidents. The consequences of a brain injury can be very diverse and sometimes delayed. Therefore, it is important to remain vigilant and be accompanied by professionals able to assess your condition over time through neurological examinations.
The severity and diversity of parameters associated with TBI require expertise at several levels. This expertise necessarily involves the assistance of various specialized medical and paramedical experts: neurologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech therapists, etc. The lawyer, for their part, will assess the practical and human consequences of the accident for his client and ensure their protection while they are in a state of weakness, a direct consequence of the accident.
Advocates at the Shiner Law Group have helped clients who suffered traumatic brain injuries throughout Florida and are at the service of Fort Pierce residents. Our lawyers have experience assisting clients who suffered TBI and have witnessed firsthand the severity of its consequences faced by the victims and their families. Your Fort Pierce traumatic brain injury lawyer is committed to seeking justice for you and your loved ones.
Fort Pierce Traumatic Brain Injuries Explained
It is obvious that this type of injury is not specific to an accident category, although it is more frequent in road or sports accidents. As its name suggests, TBI is not strictly speaking a trauma of the skull, that is to say, the cranial box, but a brain injury. One may have been the victim of a skull fracture without the brain being affected.
The cranial box protects the brain. However, the injury may damage and pose a risk to the brain. If the latter suffers a hematoma due to the shock, the skull will prevent it from expanding, and it may severely compress the brain.
In the other case, like a tennis ball hits a wall, the brain will strike the skull, rebounding on its back or front depending on the shock direction. These back and forth movements will then create diffuse lesions in the brain, often having disastrous consequences. If the brain is affected in an accident, the most obvious signs are loss of consciousness, even for a few minutes, or a coma.
TBI is specific both from the point of view of clinical medicine and from legal or compensatory assessment. It is often characterized by anosognosia (denial of the disease by the patient). The expression “invisible handicap” used by certain specialists sums up the complexity of the picture.
The common causes of TBI include falls, motor vehicle accidents, violence or recreational accidents, such as sports. TBI resulting from these accidents can sometimes result in heavy pathologies: hemiplegia, motor deficits, dysphasia or various cognitive disorders.
We commonly find head trauma cases with serious consequences – in traffic accidents (automobile, trucking, motorcycle, pedestrian, cyclist, etc.). But these traumas, particularly heavy with consequences, can also occur due to domestic, personal or sports accidents and assaults.
Brain Injuries May Go Unnoticed Initially
Unfortunately, if the loss of consciousness was brief, especially if it is accompanied by other more visible traumas such as visceral hemorrhages, fractures, heart problems, it may go unnoticed.
The victim will not always report it to the fire department or on arrival at the hospital, and/or the emergency room staff will not think about doing examinations that are necessary to do early, especially if the head trauma is said to be mild or moderate.
This is all the more disturbing as the severity of the coma on arrival is not always the diagnosis of serious injury. However, a 20-minute loss of consciousness can significantly affect the victim’s professional and social life.
Indeed, the conditions of head trauma can be motor and functional if the shock strikes the part of the brain controlling this function (hearing loss, hemiplegia, etc.). Still, they can also be cognitive and emotional.
This is the classic frontal syndrome, affecting the brain’s higher functions during a shock to the front of the skull. The after-effects appear in the form of memory disorders, mood disorders, irritability, a lack of concentration, difficulty in planning, programming something, or, on the contrary, a prostration, sometimes both successively. The victim also loses their ability to deal with their frustrations and ability to empathize. Their family and friends consider that they are no longer the same.
If the TBI is not diagnosed immediately or not the subject of a therapeutic follow-up, it will be difficult to relate these conditions described above to the accident. Considering a major part of the population suffering from TBI, many severely traumatized and suffered disabilities, this type of injury needs holistic care and support.
Traumatic Brain Injury and Its After-Effects in Fort Pierce
From a medical point of view, a TBI will result in more or less long and significant loss of consciousness. It can thus cause various health concerns. The latter is assessed in particular through a rating scale that highlights three levels of severity: mild, moderate, and severe. This distinction allows the practitioner to make a diagnosis and establish the consequences of the trauma.
Mild TBI Symptoms
- Headache
- Nausea or vomiting
- Fatigue or drowsiness
- Speech problems
- Dizziness
- Loss of balance
- Loss of consciousness for a few seconds or a few minutes
- Confused, and disoriented state, among others
Moderate to Severe TBI Symptoms
- Loss of consciousness for several minutes or hours
- Repeated vomiting or nausea
- Seizures
- Dilation of pupils
- Constant headache that may get worse
- Weakness, numbness in the fingers or toes
- Swallowing problems
- Inability to plan motor movements
- Loss of coordination
- Clear liquids coming out of the nose or ears
- Inability to wake up from sleep, among others, among others
The insurance company must carry out the expertise specifically for this pathology. But still, it is better if a doctor is also appointed by the victim’s lawyer to identify all the items of compensable damage.
Getting Compensation For A Fort Pierce TRamatic Brain Injury
Compensation for TBI is a source of complexity because of the variety of injuries during a shock. The expertise of the TBI is delicate. Even if the expert practitioner generally has the rating linked to the scale, the fact remains that some damage may be completely invisible. Generally, the expert doctor is assisted by a professional specializing in the medical field (psychiatrist, occupational therapist, traumatologist, professionally qualified in the needs of third parties, etc.).
As the statistics show, TBI mostly affects the young population whose future is in jeopardy. This is obviously to be taken into account when calculating compensation. In particular, this involves evaluating all the consequences of the accident on the professional future of a young person and future integration.
Note that the heaviest compensation item often becomes the need for a third party in terms of TBI repair. The loss of future professional earnings and the potential reclassification of the traumatized are also fundamental parameters to consider when carrying out the victim’s compensations.
Why You Need a Fort Pierce Traumatic Brain Injury Attorney
TBI is a life turned upside down; it is a life to be recomposed, a thread to reweave. Faced with this suffering of seeing oneself like a stranger in an environment that is nevertheless familiar, we have a duty to offer the best possible support. Our lawyers at the Shiner Law Group are aimed at defending victims of TBIs effectively against insurance companies.
Considering the stakes for the victim, the extent of the after-effects, and the heavy and often definitive consequences of TBIs, the assistance of a lawyer trained in the compensation of personal injury appears to be essential than ever. The specifics of head trauma require a certain level of skill from the lawyer. Your Fort Pierce traumatic brain injury lawyer is an expert in personal injury law and aims to defend financial compensation for your suffering.
Our attorneys also establish damages in the victim’s case, depending on the accident and symptoms suffered. Establishing damages isn’t just adding up the victim’s medical bills. Damages in a TBI lawsuit include:
- Past and future medical treatment
- Lost wages and lost income in the future due to potential disabilities
- Pain and suffering
- Rehabilitation services
- Loss of companionship
A traumatic brain injury attorney will assist the trauma victim by establishing these damages. A lawyer is a decisive actor so that you obtain fair and complete compensation for your TBI, directly after the accident or even several years after when the consequences of the head trauma are late.
Our lawyers have expertise in personal injury law and have experience in dealing with traumatic brain injury cases. Your Fort Pierce traumatic brain injury lawyer remains vigilant from the medical assessment phase so that the medical experts can be told about the after-effects that may have a significant impact on the professional level to make it possible to achieve fair compensation.
How A Fort Pierce Traumatic Brain Injury Attorney Can Help
The Shiner Law Group passionately advocates for traumatic brain injury victims harmed by the negligence of others. TBI cases are as expensive as they are serious. You need a traumatic brain injury lawyer prior to speaking with your insurance company to get fair compensation that covers your medical bills, lost profits, and other damages.
When these injuries result from a road accident, their compensation regime involves the liability of the insurance of the person responsible for the accident. For accidents of another nature, action should be taken within the framework of the civil or criminal liability of the perpetrator of the accident.
When it comes to compensation, the assessment can be complex, in part because the after-effects are likely to change over time and sometimes invisible to the naked eye.
TBI has a significant impact on the victim’s life, particularly in the immediate expenses related to the accident and those in the future. The lesion assessment phase is, therefore, a decisive step in the repair process.
The expert doctor appointed is responsible for assessing the damage suffered by the victim, but the one appointed by the insurance company may underestimate the consequences of the accident due to the financial interests at stake.
The intervention of the lawyer is not limited to the contentious phase of the compensation procedure. Our lawyers accompany the victims from the lesion assessment phase to precisely point out all the damages.
In the event of a dispute, the firm may refer the victim to a specialist and independent medical consultant who, as part of an amicable or legal expert opinion, will carry out a medical assessment detailing the damage suffered.
On the basis of these elements and accompanied by a network of professionals, your Fort Pierce traumatic brain injury lawyer is able to make a fair assessment of requests for repairs and support the victim, both within the framework of an amicable procedure and before the competent courts.
Fort Pierce Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyer Review
Fort Pierce Traumatic Brain Injury Law Office
Shiner Law Group
531 S US Hwy 1, Building A STE D
Fort Pierce, FL 34950
