Image via Flickr by starpause kid
Personal injury is the number one cause of death for people between the ages of 1 and 44, and it’s the fourth leading cause of death overall in Indiana, according to the latest statistics from theIndiana State Department of Health. Personal injury includes physical harm or damage to someone’s body caused by an accident or an attack. This article will outline what constitutes a personal injury case and what you should do if you are involved in one. Learn more about personal injury law and give us a call at (219) 300-5204 today!
What Constitutes a Personal Injury Case?
Any kind of injury to your person that’s caused by another entity can constitute a personal injury case. The most common types of personal injury accidents are traffic accidents, slip and fall cases, pedestrian accidents, and other accidental injuries that occur at work or in public places.
Most personal injuries are unintentional. Theleading causes of unintentional injury death in Indiana in 2018 were unintentional poisonings, vehicle collisions, and falls.
In other cases, personal injury claims can be due to neglect. For instance, nursing home neglect cases are a sad reality that many families go through. Dog bite injuries are also fairly common, and they are often tied back to neglect on the part of the owner.
The chances that you will suffer some kind of personal injury in your lifetime are, unfortunately, significant. It doesn’t take too much for it to happen — someone missing a red light or speeding a few miles above the speed limit, trying to work with a new machine in the workplace, or just walking down the street on a snowy day and slipping. Actions that occur every day without causing any accident can one day cause an injury. When this happens and it’s not your fault, you may have a personal injury case on your hands.
How Will a Personal Injury Affect My Everyday Life?
All of us know how even a small injury can complicate our daily routine, our performance, and overall emotional well-being. The extent to which this occurs depends on the severity of the injury.
Hopefully, after a short recovery period, your life will be back to normal. But in the case of more serious injuries, life can change forever, and you need all the help you can get to keep moving.
When you evaluate the effects of a personal injury, be sure to include things like the medical diagnosis, the amount of pain you’re in, the loss of daily activities for work or entertainment, the emotional stress of the injury, and any other ways your life has changed because of your injury. When you think of it this way, the tally starts to add up.
When Should I Be Compensated for a Personal Injury?
If you are involved in an accident and you did not cause the damage, you are entitled to compensation. Compensation can help you to get back on your feet, and there is a sense of justice in knowing that the parties responsible for causing you harm have to make retribution.
In other cases, you may be responsible for part of the accident, but another party had the greater share of responsibility for the accident. Even when this is the case, you should discuss your case with a lawyer. It may be that an insurer would rule in your favor and determine that the other party needs to pay for a significant portion of the damages relating to your injury.
What Compensation Is Available?
It is important to be aware of your options so that if an accident involving a personal injury occurs, you know exactly what to do. You can claim compensation for the costs of your medical treatment, medications, medical aids, travel to the hospital, and other care. You can also charge for the replacement of damaged clothing or other belongings, home care, and compensation for lost income. If you lose wages as a result of an injury — for example, if you are unable to work for a few weeks — this amount can also be reimbursed.
You may not even be able to return to your old job if your injury is severe. In this case, it is possible to get compensation to provide for yourself long-term.
Compensation is determined on a case-by-case basis. This is why it’s important to thoroughly document your injury and all of the damages surrounding it. The more compelling a case you can make, the greater compensation you can get for your injury.
What Should I Do If I’ve Been Involved in an Accident?
In order to file a claim for a personal injury, you will need the assistance of a legal expert. A personal injury claim needs to be thorough. With the right knowledge and experience, a truly convincing and substantiated claim for damages can be made.
To put together your claim, your lawyer will help you gather medical records, receipts for medications, aids, travel tickets, medical opinions, other expert opinions, witness statements, and copies of your personal records. Each claim requires a large amount of records, documents, and files, which requires a great deal of work, research, and time.
During the time of crisis and rehabilitation, neither the victim nor the family has the time, energy, and resources to deal with all these requirements to file a proper claim. This is the job of the legal experts, who are well aware of the course of the proceedings of these cases. They can formulate the claim in such a way that it is sure to stand its ground with the insurer.
If you or someone in your family is injured, the most important thing is to focus on the personal health and recovery of the injured party and leave the exhausting administration of a claim to an expert you trust. At Alvarez Law, our personal injury experts examine each case individually and provide advice and assistance on the basis of decades of professional experience. If you need legal help with your personal injury claim, get in touch with Alvarez Law.
The post Personal Injury Stats in Northwest Indiana appeared first on Alvarez Law Office | Injury Law Firm in Indiana and Illinois.