Proving Neck Injuries
It is one part of a personal injury case in Ohio to prove liability, particularly in an automobile accident. Your attorney will have investigated the scene of the accident, secured any surveillance footage of the area, questioned witnesses and participants involved, and evaluated the police reports. The evidence has been submitted and fault has been assigned to the opposing party.
Now your lawyer must submit an amount for damages and provide proof of the expenses.
Depending on the severity of the accident, you may have been taken to the hospital by ambulance, or you may have been able to seek medical attention on your own. If paramedics were called to the scene, their on the spot analysis of your injuries is important.
Never refuse treatment, you may not feel any pain at the time but that is because your body, in reaction to the shock, is releasing adrenaline and cortisol into your bloodstream, masking your pain. Because of this numbing effect, you may think that you are fine but, eventually, they leave your body and reality sets in, in the form of pain. It may be a matter of hours or even days for the symptoms to appear and you realize the pain of a neck injury.
The most common neck injury is referred to as whiplash-the force of the body being propelled forward with the head and neck a second behind. Suddenly the body is stopped by the seatbelt and the head snaps forward, injuring muscles and ligaments, causing mild to severe pain, depending on the force of the impact.
Symptoms associated with whiplash include neck and shoulder pain, stiffness, dizziness, ringing in the ears, vomiting, back pain and blurry vision. If you didn’t seek medical help immediately after the accident, do so as soon as possible after discovery of the pain to prove the correlation of the injury and the collision.
Soft tissue damages such as whiplash are sometimes hard to document medically, making your claim harder to prove. It will be even more difficult convincing anyone of the seriousness of your injury if you have waited days or weeks to consult a medical practitioner.
The insurance adjuster or attorney for the opposing party may try to infer that the injuries occurred through an incident separate from the accident! Unlike a broken bone that can show up on an x-ray, soft tissue damage is harder to document.
Your attorney’s best tool in winning your case is the medical records from any and all treatment you have received for the injury. Testimony that proves how the accident occurred and the particular way it happened could also show the connection between your injury and injury to others that happened in like situations. This may also require the testimony of an expert in the field to attest to how the accident likely caused the injuries.
It falls on your lawyer’s expertise in these matters to submit a paper trail of medical evidence to support your claim for medical expenses, lost wages and pain and suffering.