It all happened in a blur. You caught a glimpse of something headed toward you, fast – a black car, face in the window puckered in a permanent O. You braked. Too late. The impact sent your face into the airbag, your back into the side of the car, and your arm – somewhere. You wind up dazed, in a car that needs to be cut open, and you hurt all over.
Eventually you’re in the hospital in bed. The doctor congratulates you on not suffering too much injury – a few bruises here and there, he says, a cut, perhaps some strained muscles in your back. You thank him; he discharges you the next day.
But the pain doesn’t stop. It gets worse. Finally you see an orthopedic surgeon, who tells you that you have soft tissue damage and maybe a ruptured disk in your back. You will probably be in pain for the rest of your life – and if you return to your job as a construction foreman, you risk injuring yourself worse and being paralyzed as well.
Suddenly, your whole life has changed. And it’s not even your fault – the other driver, a teenager talking on a cell phone, turned right into you. But the insurance company stonewalls; there’s no provable medical damage, they say. Our doctors looked at the x-rays. You’re fine. You’re faking your injuries.
Faking your pain, which grows worse every day.
You need a personal injury lawyer.
Personal Injury lawyers
A personal injury lawyer is a lawyer who specializes in representing victims in personal injury cases. He may have people who’ve been in a car accident, like you. Or he may be used to representing people who’ve been injured in industrialaccidents, by doctors or other medical professionals, or by corporations who either fraudulently proclaim something safe or accidentally release something harmful. Your personal injurylawyer has heard it all; and he knows that your pain is real.
A personal injury lawyer can do a lot for you. He can line up doctors who will examine you and your medical records to attempt to determine precisely what’s wrong. For every doctor the insurance companies line up to swear that your records show no injury, he can produce an equally qualified professional to testify that they’ve examined you personally and you most certainly do have permanent debilitating injuries.
But it’s not just car injuries that may make you require his services. In today’s high-pressure workplace, you may be injured by workplace stress; one of my friends was rendered unable to work for years after she had a nervous breakdown at work in the bathroom. They sent her home. And then didn’t understand why she couldn’t come in the next day. Your personal injury lawyer can help you find a professional who will help you with your problems, and who will testify in court as to the extent of your damages and how they were caused.
In another case, a doctor who had been given the task of circumcising a premature infant – slipped. Just a little. But it only took a little for the circumcision to turn into a castration, and the poor little boy suffered the consequence. His parents made the very difficult decision to have him surgically changed into a girl; they sued and were awarded damages to cover the child’s medical and therapy bills, and to make life easier as he grew into an adult.
Doctors and nurses and other medical professionals make mistakes ([http://www.personal-injury-accident-claim.com/malpractice.html]). Sometimes they admit them; often, they don’t. A personal injury lawyer will stand by you, help you find alternate medical treatment, and then support your case as you sue the professional who injured you.
Sometimes companies do bad things and cover them up. Asbestos, though it was restricted years ago, still causes damage to people today. Chemical spills that are covered up by the violating company for fear of having to pay large sums in environmental cleanup fees can sicken hundreds if it gets into the water. At Love Canal, an entire suburb was built on top of a contaminatedindustrial waste dump; dozens of children were sickened, even developing leukemia, when the contaminants seeped in through basements and baseboards, poisoning the air they breathed with invisible toxins.
Sometimes companies do bad things accidentally, or because they didn’t study the situation enough. Pharmaceutical companies have a very difficult time studying enough people to rule out harm; recently, drugs like Vioxx have made the news when they caused serious harm to people who were taking them for issues they could have lived with. Even though the harm was accidental, the company is liable for it; people died, and people had debilitating heart attacks. There are those whose lives will never be the same.
In all these cases, a personal injury lawyer can represent the victim.
How Much Does It Cost?
If you’ve been injured, chances are very good that you’re already having financial difficulties. Therefore, personal injury lawyershave worked out a system to help victims get the legal assistance they need without paying anything up front. It’s called a contingency payment plan.
Their fee is contingent upon you winning your case. You pay nothing up front. If the lawyer loses your lawsuit against your injurer, you pay nothing at all. If the lawyer wins your case, however, you pay a specified percentage of your claim to him. That’s it.
By using this system, personal injury lawyers have helped out millions of people who would otherwise have had to suffer in poverty and silence while those who caused them injury went unpunished. A personal injury lawyer helps see that justice is served.
