What Everyone Should Know About Mild TBIs
The mild Traumatic Brain Injury label is quite misleading. TBIs, or concussions, are often serious. Even if the victim has no pre-existing medical or other conditions, the effects of a concussion last up to three months. These symptoms, which include extreme fatigue, depression, anxiety, headaches, irritability, and impaired cognitive function, have a snowball effect. The loss of function often leads to strained personal, professional, and other relationships.
Furthermore, a significant number of these victims suffer from Post-Concussion Syndrome, a medical condition that researchers are still struggling to understand.
Because of these serious symptoms, the medical bills alone related to a concussion could exceed tens of thousands of dollars. A Brandon personal injury attorney can obtain compensation for all these effects. This compensation usually includes money for economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering. Additional punitive damages are available as well, in some extreme circumstances.
What Causes Concussions?
Although sports-related concussions get most of the headlines, vehicle collisions are the leading cause of concussions in Florida. These incidents combine all three brain injury causes, which are:
- Trauma: During collisions, victims often hit their heads on steering wheels, dashboards, and other solid objects. Additionally, in a crash, loose objects in a car, like cell phones, become high-speed missiles that, in many cases, are aimed directly at a person’s head.
- Motion: Most people think the brain fits snugly inside the skull, like a hand in a glove. But that’s not true. During collisions, the head usually snaps violently from side to side or back and forth, especially in rear-end and head-on wrecks. This motion causes the brain to slam repeatedly against the insides of the skull.
- Noise: Many car crash witnesses say the incident sounded like a bomb exploding. Such sudden loud noises produce shock waves that disrupt brain functions. That’s the main reason so many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans come home with brain injuries.
Falls and assaults also cause TBIs. Falls include two of the three concussion causes, and assaults usually involve either a blow to the head or a piercing wound to the head.
Driver negligence causes most vehicle collisions. Property owner negligence, such as a lack of cleanliness or a lack of security, causes most falls and assaults. In all these cases, the negligent party is legally responsible for the damages.
Diagnosis and Treatment Issues
Obtaining this compensation is only one of the jobs of a Brandon personal injury attorney. Lawyers are not doctors, but lawyers connect TBI victims with doctors who can help them. Such assistance is in short supply.
Hospital emergency rooms see about 2.5 million Americans for TBIs every year. The vast majority of these individuals are treated and released. Initial brain injury symptoms, like disorientation and soreness, mimic accident shock. So, doctors tell these victims to go home and rest, and their medical conditions deteriorate.
Attorneys connect victims with top-notch doctors who know how to diagnose and treat TBIs and other such injuries. So, they get the treatment they need when they need it. Usually, these doctors charge nothing upfront for their services.
Connect With an Experienced Brandon TBI Attorney
Injury victims are entitled to substantial compensation. For a free consultation with an experienced personal injury attorney in Brandon, contact Carman, Bevington & Finegan, P.A. We do not charge upfront legal fees in these matters.