Proper initial medical treatment
If you are injured at the scene of the accident, you hopefully took an ambulance to the
emergency room. If you did not arrive by ambulance, it is imperative that you seek medical
treatment as soon as possible. This is true even if you have minor bumps and bruises. Many of
the cases I have handled involve people who did not sustain fractures or clear serious physical
injury at the scene itself. Rather, injuries such as ligament and back disc issues degenerate over
time when trauma occurs after an accident. Initial medical treatment in close proximity to the
accident itself is therefore very important. Delaying medical treatment after you are injured will
possibly jeopardize your health and substantially prejudice your case.
Another major issue that arises in many of my cases is that people only complain about
the one body part that hurts the most while ignoring everything else that is injured. They might
have sustained a fractured wrist which is in pain, but they don’t mention the pain they have in
their knee. Or, they have to get stitches on their forehead, or they neglect to mention that they
can’t really move their shoulder. This is natural, as people are concerned with the injuries that
hurt them the most at that time. What happens, however, is that, over time, as your forehead
begins to heal but your shoulder continues to get worse and you notice substantial pain and more
lack of movement, you finally go to a doctor three months later to complain about your shoulder
for the first time. Defense attorneys and insurance companies will then say that you did not
complain about your shoulder and the injury mysteriously appeared three months later. This will
cause many problems in your case.
The best way to deal with this issue is to make complaints about every single part of your
body that is in any type of pain. Note everything to ambulance personnel and your treating
doctors in the emergency room as well as your follow-up doctors. They will likely perform
diagnostic tests so that they can evaluate these injuries and direct you for appropriate follow up.
If you did not make a complaint regarding injured parts of your body immediately after
the accident, you should note to your treating physician that you began feeling pain in this area
of your body immediately after the accident. The doctor will then note that this became injured
as a result of the accident. If you have had no intervening reason to have suffered the injury and
the mechanism of the injury is consistent with the accident, the doctor will most likely relate it to
the accident which will be a great help for your case.
for the 13th time!
