It’s not uncommon to be party to an accident and leave the incident seemingly uninjured. Then it happens: Sometime later, your back hurts, you have headaches, or your leg tingles. Those symptoms might be revealing an injury from the accident.
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Those injured in an accident often overlook the connection between the accident and their pain and suffering. Putting the events of the accident and the symptoms together helps victims, because New Mexico law requires car insurance companies to pay medical bills for those with car accident injuries. Too often, these companies will find loopholes so that they can pay out as little as possible. Attorneys for personal injuries use evidence from doctor’s visits and other sources to prove an accident caused the person’s injuries.
How Do You Know If a Car Accident Caused the Injury?
Weeks after a car accident, you may have stopped thinking about the crash. Then, you start feeling bad. You may have symptoms of mental illnesses and injuries that appear months after a wreck. Pay attention to your body. If you have any of the following symptoms you may have a delayed reaction to the wreck:
- Pain in your back: The force of a car accident puts pressure on your spine. Many people suffer from lower back pain after an accident. This can indicate injuries to the discs in your spine. Symptoms of back injuries range from a dull ache to sharp pain.
- Changes in your behavioral or emotions: The trauma of a wreck may lead to major depression, anxiety disorder, panic attacks, or post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of the symptoms of these mental illnesses include irritability, nightmares, flashbacks, avoiding people or places, trouble focusing, shortness of breath, and feeling tired all the time.
- Numbness and tingling in your limbs: The symptoms of nerve damage often appear after you feel better everywhere else. Numbness, tingling or lose feeling may indicate spinal cord damage, herniated discs, and nerve damage.
- Headaches: If you have headaches after an accident, you may be suffering from a concussion, traumatic brain injury, or something else. Some headaches start right after the accident. Other start days later.
- Neck pain: The jerking of your neck during a wreck can give you whiplash, an injury causing neck and muscle pain.
- Abdominal pain: If the steering wheel, or something else, hit you in the abdomen during your wreck, you need medical treatment as soon as possible. Pain or swelling in your a abdomen may be a symptom of a life-threatening emergency. Dizziness, fainting, headaches, or bruising also may be caused by abdominal or other internal injuries.
Any injury after an accident might be severe. The sooner a doctor sees you, the better, both for your health and for proving the injuries were from the car accident.
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Proving Symptoms Are From Injuries After Accidents
Health insurance companies always question whether an accident caused the patient’s symptoms, or something else. Proving symptoms of injuries caused by accidents can be challenging because many illnesses or diseases have the same symptoms. For example, mental health conditions unrelated to accidents might cause mood and behavior changes. Several lung diseases lead to trouble breathing. Because the cause of your symptoms may be caused by something other than the accident, it pays to hire a personal injury attorney who knows what kind of evidence to collect to fight for the money you deserve. As an accident victim, you will help your case by following this advice:
- Even if you don’t think you were hurt, see a doctor after an accident. Suppose you begin feeling pain or other symptoms later and want to make a claim against the other driver’s insurance. In that case, your exam record is an essential piece of evidence. The notes from your first doctor’s visit prove you took the accident seriously and got checked out. Your doctor is watching for symptoms to appear later.
- Talk to a lawyer before speaking to the other driver’s insurance company. Insurance professionals might claim that an accident victim who does not feel pain immediately got hurt somewhere else. An attorney for personal injury knows the best way to prove your pain and other symptoms caused by the wreck, and can prove that you did not get into another accident. Many good personal injury attorneys will even deal with the insurance company on your behalf.
How an Attorney for Personal Injury Fights for Accident Victims
Once the doctor connects your symptoms with the accident, it’s time to ask for the money you are due for your pain and suffering. Many injuries keep victims from working or doing everyday activities. The medical bills quickly get too big to pay without help.
The person or company responsible for the accident must pay your lost wages, medical bills, and more. If you need a personal injury attorney familiar with New Mexico law, contact the Kane Law Firm to speak with one of our specialists. We help those who have been in an accident prove that their symptoms are from injuries after the accident, and then work with the insurance company to get payment for your injuries and the aftermath.
The insurance company for the responsible party usually offers a settlement—a cash payment—shortly after the wreck. The check likely will cover only a visit to the emergency room or your first visit to the doctor and will not include any subsequent treatment. Neither will money make up for the time you can’t work or care for your home or children.
It is best to speak with an attorney for personal injury before accepting a settlement from the other party’s insurance company. Your lawyer will negotiate with the insurance company to get the money you need. When a company refuses to pay an accident victim what they deserve, attorneys take the next step. They file a lawsuit, and a judge or jury decides what the company owes the person who was hurt.
The lawyer defending the other party will say injuries after the accident are not the cause of the plaintiff’s pain or other symptoms. They may try to blame the symptoms on:
- Age,
- Being overweight or obese, or
- Preexisting conditions.
The personal injury attorney—the plaintiff’s attorney—will present medical records and other evidence showing the victim’s injuries after the accident are causing the pain or other symptoms. They will show records before and after the accident to prove the symptoms that appeared after the accident. If the lawyer wants even more proof, they will call a medical expert as a witness. The witness will be a doctor who has never treated you. They will interpret your records and confirm your doctor’s opinion about the injuries after the accident.
At Kane Personal Injury, we are passionate about getting financial relief for victims of car accidents and other accidents. We handle every accident involving personal injury with compassion and skill. Contact us today online or at 573-449-3673 to begin the journey to collecting a generous settlement.
Please note that this article was created for advertisement purposes, and it does not constitute any contractual legal relationship, nor imply one.