One of the common types of road accidents that people face in San Diego is rear-end crashes. These collisions often get overlooked as minor fender benders. But what seems to be a mere whiplash case often leaves victims suffering from severe health conditions later. It is a delayed-onset brain injury.
Such injuries are typically overlooked initially. However, these can affect a person’s emotional, physical, and cognitive health for a long time. Recovery might take time and at times be filled with challenges. It is here that victims should get in touch with trained and experienced lawyers to help with the legal battle. They recognize and prove this point and ensure that the victims get the desired compensation and justice.
Rear-end crashes and brain trauma: How does it occur?
A rear-end crash typically forces a person’s head to rapidly snap forward and backward, quickly generating violent acceleration and deceleration effects. Even if the skull doesn’t get an impact, this rapid motion can cause the brain to strike the inner walls of the skull from the inside, a process called the coup-contrecoup mechanism. In the immediate aftermath, victims may only report symptoms of a headache, dizziness, and maybe some neck pain. Symptoms such as memory issues, change of mood/emotion, blurred vision, and difficulty concentrating can present a few days or even weeks later, indicating that a more severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) has occurred.
Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has demonstrated that mild TBIs, such as a concussion, can develop long-term cognitive and performance problems if left untreated. Unfortunately, many crash victims in San Diego are unaware to advance to any type of neurological testing or appointment immediately after the crash, preventing prompt diagnosis, which affects their legal opportunities. This is where the guidance from any of the leading brain injury lawyers can be helpful.
Delayed brain injury- Why is it challenging to prove?
From a legal perspective, demonstrating a delayed-onset brain injury is complicated. Insurance companies typically assert that the brain injury was pre-existing or that it is unrelated to the crash altogether. This is especially true where the injured person has not opted for immediate treatment. This is where capable attorneys have an important role to play. Counsel routinely collaborates with the injured person's neurologist, neuropsychologist, and crash reconstruction expert to construct a timeline that links the collision to the injury symptoms.
Brain injury claims and litigation are becoming more prevalent today. Advanced imaging techniques such as Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) and functional MRI are regularly used by brain injury attorneys to show microstructural brain damage that standard scans do not reflect. Lawyers are leveraging advanced brain imaging with other expert testimony to provide such an effect to the link between the forces of the impact in a rear-end collision and the long-term brain injury outcomes seen later. To know more about how lawyers ensure that their clients get legal compensation, you can check out hhjtrialattorneys.com.
Therefore, for victims in San Diego as well as the rest of California, a brain injury attorney does much more than file claims. They assess the total impact of damages and not just medical costs, but loss of future wages, emotional pain and suffering, and future care needs. In serious cases, they may even seek compensation for rehabilitation and adaptive therapy needs for a prolonged recovery so that the victim can have the best chance at recovering their life.
Summing it up
Rear-end crashes can cause more harm to a person than just a stiff and painful neck. The real danger unfolds when victims face the signs of delayed-onset brain injury that can affect the entire flow of life and their mental health. The expert brain injury lawyers in San Diego can help the victims who face this condition by representing them at court and ensuring that the verdict is in their favor.