If you are involved in a serious auto accident, emergency medical responders
will most likely come to the scene, evaluate your injuries, and take you
to the nearest hospital to receive the medical care that you need.
However, things may work a little differently if you’re involved
in a less severe accident, such as a fender bender. You may not want to
overreact, so after exchanging information with the other driver, you
go back home without seeking medical attention.
This is a common mistake that many individuals make after being involved
in minor collisions—and one that could be detrimental to your car
accident claim. Here’s why you should always seek medical attention
after a car collision, no matter how minor it appears to be at first glance.
Invisible Injuries
Your immediate health and safety are the most important. While you may
not immediately feel the symptoms of an injury after an accident, some
injuries take hours, weeks or even days to manifest:
Whiplash
This occurs due to the forceful back-and-forth movement of the neck, causing
neck pain, stiffness, and loss of range of motion. While some symptoms
develop within 24 hours, others may take multiple days.
Head Injuries
Traumatic brain injuries, concussions, and skull fractures are some of
the most severe injuries that the human body can withstand. Some of these
are evident immediately due to bleeding or bruising. However, some head
injuries have delayed symptoms such as headaches, difficulty concentrating,
mood swings, or amnesia.
Neck and Spinal Injuries
Not all neck and spinal injuries lead to extreme cases of paralysis. You
might just believe you have back pain or a kink in your neck. However,these
symptoms could mean damage to your spinal discs, neck muscles or ligaments,
or even your vertebrae.
Medical Records As Evidence
Remember that you should never attempt to diagnose your symptoms at home.
If you experience any pain or injury symptoms after an accident, don’t
hesitate to seek medical attention. This will protect your rights to compensation later on.
This statement applies to situations where you don’t believe that
you were injured right after the accident. Sometimes, the adrenaline rush
of the accident can make you completely unaware of an injury.
Medical records are one of the main pieces of evidence that your personal
injury attorney will use to prove your claim. This information will be
presented to show that your injuries were directly caused by the accident
at hand, which in turn, was caused due to the negligence of the other driver.
Claims by the Insurance Company
We know from experience that insurance companies will do everything they
can to deny paying out
personal injury claims. This means that they will be scrutinizing each and every step
you take after the accident to determine if you slip up anywhere. The
insurance adjusters investigating your claim may say that:
You Did Not Seek Immediate Medical Attention.
If you don’t seek medical attention after the accident, the insurance
company may try to use this to their advantage and claim that you did
not actually sustain your injuries in the accident. Let’s say you
wait a week before feeling pain and seeking medical attention. The insurance
adjuster may say that there’s no way to prove that your pain was
due to the accident the week prior, leaving you with medical bills that
you may not be able to pay for alone.
You Did Not Follow the Doctor’s Orders.
After seeking medical attention, you are required to follow the doctor’s
orders to help recover. Failing to do so could show that you did not take
the steps necessary to heal, which means the insurance company may deny
your claim. For instance, the adjuster may try to claim that you only
sustained a minor injury, but since you did not follow the doctor’s
orders, your injury was made much worse than it should have been.
You Did Not Continue Treatment.
Your doctor may have prescribed you long-term treatment for your injury,
such as a torn ligament. You may have stopped treatment against the doctor’s
orders. The insurance adjuster may try to claim that your lost wages and
long-term injuries were due to the fact that you failed to continue the
treatment you were supposed to complete. This may mean you could lose
out on compensation for medical bills, lost wages, and ongoing medical
treatment.
Don’t let this be the case with your injury. To avoid these scenarios,
always seek medical treatment after an accident, no matter how big or
small it seems to be. After this initial medical diagnosis, you will have
a clear understanding of your injuries. You may need legal representation,
in which case, our
personal injury attorneys are here to fight for your financial recovery so that you can focus on healing.
If you or a loved one was injured in a car accident, you need a team of
legal advocates to help ensure that the insurance company does not take
advantage of your rights. With over 140 years of combined experience,
the attorneys at
Johnson, Vorhees & Martucci are the skilled fighters you want on your side of the court. We will look
at the details of your case to determine a personalized legal strategy
and fight to help you obtain fair and just compensation for your injuries.
We are licensed to represent clients in Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, and
Oklahoma. Contact our firm at (833) 600-0125 to schedule your free case review.
