Brain injuries are especially complex because the brain is the organ that controls all other parts of the body. Not only does a brain injury affect you physically, but it also affects your thinking, your ability to reason, your emotions, and even your personality.
Fighting for the Legal Compensation You Deserve after a TBI
The WilliamsFord Team has extensive experience working with clients who have suffered from traumatic brain injuries (TBI). The injury can sometimes be very subtle, and can change a person from who he or she once was. Many of our clients have said: “I am not the same person I was before my accident.” In most instances, family and friends confirm that fact.
Imagine living your life as you are for years and suddenly one day you are in the wrong place at the wrong time and someone’s negligence causes you to experience a brain injury. The most common way to injure the brain is through a direct blow or trauma to the head. Our skulls are strong and designed to protect our brains, but there is still risk. Even indirect trauma from a car accident can cause an injury to the brain within your skull. You can easily injure your brain in a car accident or a slip and fall accident, and in a moment your world changes forever.
Brain injuries also occur from infection or as secondary damage. You might experience a medical emergency that disrupts oxygen to the brain. Just a short period of time without oxygen can trigger severe changes in the brain, resulting in a full range of issues from brain tissue death to coma.
Have you or a loved one experienced a traumatic brain injury? Chances are doctors are giving you a lot of information and you are scared of what the future holds. You aren’t even thinking about the cost of long-term care or the compensation you might be due as the result of your injury. Your most important priority is to understand the ramifications of the injury.
The Effects of a Brain Injury
Traumatic brain injures are often silent and invisible. This means insurance companies will fight to avoid paying damages and might claim the injuries “are not real.” People with traumatic brain injuries often display no outward signs of injury. It’s easy to see the consequences of an accident that resulted in paralysis or amputation, but the harm done by a TBI is not always immediately obvious.
Although no brain injury is typical, the one element that can usually be seen with some consistency is that damage from a TBI is rarely limited to one area. When the human head comes into contact with a hard object or surface, or if the head is whipped back and forth quickly, the brain moves at a different rate of speed and may ricochet inside the skull (where there are boney ridges that can shear neurons). The result is brain damage at the point of impact and the point directly opposite. This is what is commonly called “counter-coup” injury. The trauma often causes shearing injuries in the axonal pathways which breaks the connection we need to process information.
Just as each separate section of the human brain provides a group of functions, damage to each section adversely affects how those functions work. Click here to learn more. Many doctors will order a battery of neuropsychological tests to determine which area of the brain is damaged, since the lesions that occur from trauma are often microscopic and will not show on normal radiographic tests like MRI’s or CT Scans. These tests were created after World War II to map out veterans’ brains in order to know where an injury had occurred.
Sadly, victims of TBI can spend the rest of their life dealing with the ramifications of their injury. Despite the tragedy of a TBI, insurance companies are reluctant to provide full and fair compensation. Their goal is to minimize the damage or, as disturbing as it might seem, imply the victim is faking his or her injury. This is why it is so important to work with an attorney experienced with brain injuries and aware of how insurance companies operate.
WilliamsFord: Focused on the Rights of TBI Victims
The auto accident attorneys at WilliamsFord have spent years fighting for the rights of TBI survivors. They know how devastating a brain injury is for a person and his or her family, and they do everything they can to protect the rights of their clients.
In addition to representing the legal interests of victims, Barbara Williams served for many years on the Board of Trustees of Brain Injury Services, a non-profit group that provides free case management services to survivors of brain injuries. She has seen first-hand the difficulties that survivors of brain injuries face and she brings that knowledge, experience, and compassion to all of her brain injury clients.
Have you or a loved one suffered a traumatic brain injury? Contact WilliamsFord to discuss your case and fight for the compensation you deserve. And remember, we handle cases in Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.
