Our skulls may be fairly thick bones, but it does not take that hard of an impact to cause a serious life-changing brain injury. Such an injury can be irreversible and can have a great impact on an entire family. If this happens to you or a family member due to someone else’s negligence, you need a Pikeville brain injury attorney on your side.
Sometimes the extent of injuries is not immediately clear, but in Kentucky, you have one year to file your suit. You may also file a suit if a family member has been killed as a result of a head or brain injury. This is not something you should try to do by yourself. You can be certain insurance companies, or businesses where our injuries happened, will have a team of lawyers on their side to keep your payment as small as possible. A good Pikeville brain injury attorney can help you get justice by holding insurance companies and other businesses accountable.
About 5,000 people suffer a brain injury in Kentucky every year, and 3,400 of them survive. The main causes are car accidents, falls, and violent crime.
In Kentucky, automobile accidents are the leading cause of traumatic brain injuries. Teenagers and young men are the most likely to have these kinds of accidents with cars, or with motorcycles. Nationwide, falls are the leading cause of brain injury, with automobile accidents coming a close second.
Motorcycles are also often victims of brain injury when they are in an accident. According to the National Highway Safety Administration, wearing a helmet is 37 percent safer as far as preventing fatal brain injury for motorcyclists. This means that for every 100 deaths, 37 of them could have been prevented if the rider had worn a helmet.,
Kentucky requires helmets for people under the age of 21, but not for anyone older than that. Nationwide, states that require helmets for everyone have a much lower fatality rate for motorcyclists involved in accidents.
Falling is also a leading cause of traumatic brain injury. Nationwide, falls cause half of the serious brain injuries in people under the age of 60, and 60 percent of the injuries are for those 65 or older. Half of the fatal falls that killed older people were due to serious brain injuries.
Bicycling injuries are another common cause of brain injuries. In Kentucky, people under the age of 12 are required to wear helmets, but not anyone older. Cities can pass stricter laws, but thus far Pikeville has not. Bicycle helmets can prevent most head injuries and nearly all deaths for cyclists. Traumatic brain injuries are often caused when cyclists do not wear helmets and have crashes. Even a minor bicycling accident can cause a serious head injury that could have been prevented with a helmet.
Various sports activities can also cause traumatic brain injury. Some of these include:
- Football
- Basketball
- Soccer
- Horseback riding
- skating,
- Golfing
- ATV riding
Injuries can happen in a matter of seconds, and a person may never recover completely, even if the injury is not fatal. If someone was negligent and contributed to your accident, they should have compensated you in some way. This is where an experienced and knowledgeable attorney is needed most. Often, a person with this type of injury is unable to pursue justice, and a family member has to do it for them.
If another party was at fault in an automobile accident, for instance, the insurance company may offer you a settlement that is far below what you should be getting. It is in your best interest to contact a brain injury attorney as soon as possible to make sure you get what you should be getting.
This is extremely hard to do by yourself. You would have to know the law, and personal injury law is very complex. Lawyers have the training to take care of the business aspects of your case. They can negotiate a good settlement for you, or if need be, take the case to court. Most cases are settled out of court, but you need to know whether your attorney will take the case to court if it becomes necessary. Insurance companies are much more willing to negotiate a fair settlement if your attorney has a record of taking companies to court when negotiations fail.
If you have an automobile accident and another driver causes damage to your car, it is a simple matter of them reimbursing you for the cost of repairing a dented fender. A traumatic brain injury is much more complicated, and cannot be a simple matter of paying expenses. The impact that has on your life is not something that can be measured, so it takes a lot of research and knowledge of both medicine and law to determine what your injuries are actually worth.
Basically, to have a case, you must show that there was an injury and the extent of the injury. You will have to prove the other party was responsible for the accident. If a police report says the other driver was at fault in a car accident, that is solid evidence that you have a case. Many injuries are not that simple, which is why you need a good personal injury lawyer on your side.
You will also have to prove negligence, which is not always as easy as proving who caused an accident. In legal terms, a person has a responsibility to not put another person in a situation where they could be seriously injured – whether that means acting recklessly or causing a hazard to exist. That they either knew, or should have known, and did not do what they should have to avoid the accident, is negligence. It does not have to be an intentional act that caused the injury.
If you have been injured because of someone else’s negligence, you should contact a brain injury lawyer to discuss your case. The initial consultation is free, and your lawyer can help you determine whether you have a case or not. If the lawyer takes your case, he or she will be paid as part of the settlement that is won either through negotiation or the result of a trial.
