Car accidents can come with severe financial and physical consequences even if you walk away from a crash. Some of the most common types of car accident injuries include upper body injuries like whiplash and concussions.
Both of these injuries can have a significant impact on your life, and it’s important to seek compensation to aid in your recovery.
Getting the full value of a whiplash and concussion settlement requires the skill and knowledge of an experienced lawyer. At McCall Law, our Florence, SC car accident lawyer is on your side, here to help your case. Call McCall today — don’t let a whiplash and concussion claim keep you in pain.
Understanding Two Common Car Accident Injuries: Whiplash and Concussions
Whether the car accident is minor or severe, there is always a possibility of sustaining physical injuries. The force of the collision can have a huge impact on your body, especially the upper portion of your body, such as your upper back, neck, and head.
Even if you do not think you are injured after a collision, you still need to seek immediate medical attention. Many car accident injuries are not physically visible but can still have serious health implications if left unaddressed.
How severe your injuries are often comes down to where your vehicle was hit, the speed of the vehicle, and whether or not you were wearing a seatbelt.
Whiplash vs. concussions
Two of the most common types of car accident injuries include concussions and whiplash. These are injuries that are the result of the impact of the collision, as the force alone can cause significant damage even if you don’t have any external injuries.
Whiplash is the most common of the two, as it is a neck sprain or strain.
Whiplash occurs when your head moves abruptly forward or backward in a whiplike motion, causing damage to the muscles, joints, or ligaments.
Some people may notice discomfort immediately after the accident if they feel soreness or tenderness around their neck and upper back. But whiplash symptoms may go unnoticed for days or weeks after the accident. Whiplash also usually requires physical therapy since it can impact your range of motion and cause chronic pain.
A concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury that’s the result of a blow, bump, or sudden movement to the head and upper body. When this happens, your brain moves around inside your skull, creating a chemical change.
Concussions can range from minimal to severe and could result in permanent brain damage.
Concussions are also invisible injuries like whiplash, since you may not feel any initial pain or any symptoms until hours or days later. After an accident, you need to get checked out to make sure you do not have a concussion since this may not have any symptoms for days or weeks until it starts causing brain damage.
What Factors Impact Whiplash and Concussion Settlements?
If you want to go after a whiplash and concussion settlement, how much this will include depends on the details of the accident. There’s no average settlement for whiplash and concussions, as no case is exactly alike.
You must hire a lawyer to help you build your case, and gather evidence to help you get compensation for a concussion and whiplash.
The severity of the injuries
One reason why every settlement will look different is because these injuries range in severity. If you had a mild case of whiplash, your settlement wouldn’t be as high since the implications of this are short-term and minimal. But if you had a concussion with whiplash, this would result in a greater financial loss and longer recovery time.
The law determines that more extensive injuries entitle you to a more significant compensation amount. To prove how extensive your injuries are, you need to have plenty of medical documentation to back up your claims.
You can prove the extent of your injuries with supporting evidence like from medical reports and expert witnesses.
Financial impact
If another person caused a car accident, you should not be held responsible for facing the costs after the fact. Whiplash and concussion settlements need to include the financial impact you have experienced due to these injuries.
One example of this is the medical expenses you now have as a result of these injuries.
You may have had to get emergency treatment and hospitalization to treat a severe concussion, or you may be facing physical therapy expenses for whiplash. You also need to take into account the long-term expenses since these injuries can cause chronic side effects.
Other examples of financial loss include lost wages if you have to take time off work to recover. You may also experience an impact on your earning abilities if you are no longer able to maintain your work hours or you have to quit your job.
Liability and insurance coverage
When you are negotiating your settlement, you will need to understand each involved party’s liability and insurance coverage. Your attorney will help you do this since they will be the ones directly negotiating with the insurance companies. Your lawyer can uncover all the policies that you might be able to claim against — sometimes even from your family members in your household.
Hire Our Car Accident Lawyer in Florence, SC
Whiplash can result in long-term pain, as well as limited mobility and difficulty working or maintaining certain hobbies. On the other hand, concussions could cost you a few days off work or could result in much more extensive brain damage.
Despite how common they are, they can come with long-term repercussions.
If you were the victim of a car accident due to someone else’s negligence, you deserve compensation to aid in your recovery and the impact this has had on your life.
At McCall Law, we handle the heavy lifting in obtaining whiplash and concussion settlements, helping victims get the compensation they need to get their lives back on track. Contact us today at 843-279-8148 or online to request your free case evaluation.