Spinal cord injuries change lives, households, and in some cases even entire neighborhoods. When you lose the capacity to completely control your own body, you will need to rely on others for assistance. The people who at one time depended on you may find themselves floundering as they struggle to take care of you. There is no shame in this requirement for support, but it does have functional implications. You’ll need to have support accessing healthcare, attending to insurance coverage problems, and advocating for your rights at work, school, and in your community. A Slidell LA spinal cord injury lawyer is your finest ally in this battle.
The most common cause of a spinal cord injury is a motor vehicle mishap. This cause represents 38.4 percent of cases. Coming in second on the list is falling. This cause is responsible for 30.5 percent of these devastating injuries. Other causes that complete the top 5 are violence, sports, and medical/surgical causes, in that order.
There are around 17,500 new cases of spinal cord injuries each year in this country. Males are the victim in around 81 percent of these cases. On average, victims are around 42 years of age at the time of injury. This is an escalation from the typical age of 29, which is where this statistic stood in 1970. Breaking down the injuries by race and ethnic background reveals something else that is interesting. The majority of cases involve whites who aren’t Hispanic. Blacks who aren’t Hispanic landed 2nd on the list. The majority of the victims are single at the time of the mishap. High school grads represent more than half of the victims. Most spinal cord injury victims were employed when they were hurt.
Considering all of these points, it is easy to see why people who suffer any of these life-altering injuries might choose to look for compensation. This can help them to handle the sharp escalation in expenditures that typically accompany this kind of injury. Cases can be very complex, and having the right representation on your side can go a long way toward obtaining a favorable result. As a personal injury lawyer, Frank J. D’Amico, Sr. is ready and willing to assist you with your claim. Call today! 985.645.0088
High Cost of Care For a Serious Back Injury
Like it or not, medical treatment is a successful business enterprise. That signifies that if you do not have finances or adequate insurance coverage, you might be stuck getting second-rate treatment. Making a legal claim for your injuries enables you to recover the funds you are in need of to pay for pricey medical and life enhancing services and equipment. An attorney who focuses on back and spinal cord injury, (SCI), may also have the ability to refer you to a physician who is exceptionally qualified to attend to your injuries.
Unless you spontaneously experience a full recovery, you most likely won’t have the capacity to do all the activities you previously performed with ease– having fun with your infant, laboring to support your family, or training your son or daughter’s softball squad, for example. A successful spinal cord injury lawsuit enables you to protect your family by:
Committing resources to their future with the money you pick up.
Covering at home caretakers so that your household can enjoy your family relationship, not invest your time together solely on care-taking.
Guaranteeing you can manage high-quality treatment, possibly increasing your chances of recovery.
Enabling you to purchase services that support your household, such as grocery shopping, child care, and family therapy.
Covering the cost of assistive devices to expand your physical abilities.
Standard Losses From a Traumatic Back Injury
A spinal cord injury practically guarantees lost income. Even if you are eventually able to return to your job, you’ll likely have to take several months off to recuperate. You’re entitled to remuneration for these lost earnings. And if your injury has permanently decreased or eliminated your ability to make money, a spinal cord injury claim can recoup funds to cover this loss in making capability. A spinal cord injury attorney can counsel you about your disability rights, send letters in your place, and file a lawsuit to secure you from discrimination.
Spinal cord injury lawyers do more than simply file claims. They’re also part of a neighborhood of spinal cord injury specialists. An SCI (Spinal Cord Injury) lawyer who focuses on spine injuries likely has connections throughout the SCI neighborhood. Your lawyer can refer you to expert doctors, link you to other SCI survivors, suggest support system, and inform you about exactly what you can expect from life following a spinal cord injury.
A catastrophic injury can rob you of your sense of control. When you rely on others for your care, that sense of efficacy can be eroded even further. Hiring a Slidell LA personal injury lawyer who focuses on spinal cord injury provides you a way to gain back control. You’ll achieve easy access to compensation, have a clearer awareness of your rights, and be able to begin putting the pieces of your life back together.
A crew chief with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 167, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, rides in the back of a UH-1Y Venom as it approaches a landing zone during a training exercise near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, on June 17th, 2016.
(Photo: Lance Corporal Aaron K. Fiala/U.S. Marine Corps)
In the autumn of 1980, a contractor showed up to grade a parking lot. He had no idea he was about to start digging up the radioactive bodies of dead beagles. But the forked bucket on his bulldozer started pulling up more than soil, and it turned out he was digging in a pit of strontium-90 and dog carcasses that had been buried in an ash-gray tomb: a nest of dead dogs and laboratory waste labeled “Radioactive Poison.”
The new parking lot was on the site of the former Naval Research Laboratory dump and its associated incinerator in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina—and it was just one of many areas contaminated by an assortment of hazardous waste and chemicals on the base.
About half a mile away from the dump, soon to be known as Site 19, my friends and I were living in our neighborhood, called Paradise Point. We spent our time putting other girls’ bras into freezers at slumber parties, playing the Telephone Game, riding our bikes all over the place: to the golf course to steal a cart, to swim at the pool, to play soccer on Saturdays.
During the same autumn the dead beagles were found, I was sitting in front of a fake backdrop of rusty colored leaves, a slight 11-year-old girl with spaces between my teeth and freckles spritzed across my nose and cheeks, to take my school photo.
The author’s fifth-grade photo.
(Photo: Lori Lou Freshwater)
Under normal circumstances, this entirely unremarkable fifth-grade photo, in a plaid shirt and fragile gold necklace, would have likely ended up where most school photos do, in an old album or a drawer or simply lost to time. Instead, the photo would become a marker in the medical history of my family and my community, a reminder of the crime that was being committed on the day the photo was taken—and also for decades before, and for years after.
The place was Camp Lejeune, a United States Marine Corps base wrapped around the New River in Onslow County that served as an amphibious training base where Marines learned to be “the world’s best war fighters,” picking up skills that would allow them (for example) to make surprise landings on the shores of far away countries. From the 1950s until at least 1985, the drinking water was contaminated with toxic chemicals at levels 240 to 3400 times higher than what is permitted by safety standards.
There may never be a true accounting of the suffering caused at Lejeune. As with many other hometown environmental disasters, the Marines and family members poisoned on this military base were not born here, nor did they settle here to make a permanent life and raise their children. Instead, they were often here just for a short time, literally stationed at Lejeune for weeks, months, or, at most, a few years. From the 1950s through at least 1985, an undetermined number of of residents, including infants, children, and civilian workers and personnel, were exposed to trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), vinyl chloride, and other contaminants in the drinking water at the Camp Lejeune. These exposures likely increased their risk of cancers, including renal cancer, multiple myeloma, leukemias, and more. It also likely increased their risk of adverse birth outcomes, along with other negative health effects. Now the sick and the dying are all over the world, and an untold number will never be notified about what happened. Instead, we are left to rely on scientific models and data trickling out of public-health agencies and the slow process of adding one story at a time, person-by-person, to the cold data representing an environmental and public-health disaster.
In 1989, the Environmental Protection Agency placed 236 square miles of North Carolina’s coastal soil and water on the list of toxic areas known as Superfund sites. The agency cited “contaminated groundwater, sediment, soil and surface water resulting from base operations and waste handling practices” as reasons for including it on the National Priorities List.
Camp Lejeune remains a sprawling Superfund site, and it is also the place where my mom and I spent years drinking a terrible mix of chemicals from our faucet. In the book A Trust Betrayed: The Untold Story of Camp Lejeune, author Mike Magner gives special attention to my mother’s story: “A woman with the ironic name of Mary Freshwater may have had the most ghastly experiences at Camp Lejeune.”
Of course, I share her ironic name, which can still seem like more of a curse. Nearly my entire childhood was consumed by tragedy. The chemical contamination can be linked to the deaths of my two baby brothers, Rusty and Charlie, and to my mom’s own difficult final years, when she was dying from two types of acute leukemia. My mother also suffered from mental illness, which was intensified—understandably—by our family’s brutal losses. Sometimes it seems that, behind me, there is nothing but inescapable grief.
My middle school was called Tarawa Terrace II, named for the famous World War II Battle of Tarawa. I rode a Marine-green bus every day instead of a yellow one, on a base that had expanded during World War II to claim rivers, creeks, swamps, and mile after mile of Atlantic oceanfront.
Early in the unfolding tragedy, the Army sent a note to Marine leadership about water-testing results. It was sent the same month that my mother wrote on the back of my fifth-grade photo: October, 1980. Army Laboratory Service Chief William Neal scrawled on the bottom of the lab results: “Water is highly contaminated with low molecular weight halogenated hydrocarbons.”
The U.S. Army lab (USAEHA) from Fort McPherson conducted water testing on samples taken from the Hadnot Point water distribution system. USAEHA Army Laboratory Service Chief William Neal warned Navy officials with a handwritten caption at the bottom of the lab results: “Water is highly contaminated with low molecular weight halogenated hydrocarbons.”
(Photo: Mike Partain)
It was an early warning about the drinking water on the base. But the Marines didn’t take any action that month or the next, and even after several warnings—including another handwritten note that exclaimed merely “Solvents!“—the Marine Corps waited five years to start shutting down contaminated wells. After that first memo, issued only days before the radioactive beagles were found, the poisoned drinking water kept flowing for several more years.
Camp Lejeune has been characterized as a candidate for the worst water contamination case in U.S. history—and I am one of up to a million people who were poisoned. The tragedy, though, is hardly all in the past.
According to the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), the military’s failures are continuing today; mistakes are being repeated at our bases overseas, and, in foreign cases, it took a whistleblower to prompt action on contaminated water. A 2013 investigative report produced by the Navy inspector general, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveals “shortfalls in the oversight and management of drinking water for Navy personnel stationed overseas—even in wealthy, developed countries.” The report concludes that “not a single Navy overseas drinking water system meets U.S. compliance standards” or the Navy’s own governing standards,” according to POGO.
HOW THE WATER BECAME TOXIC
An important part of Marine culture is always being squared away—a code of personal cleanliness and etiquette that requires a pressed and starched uniform and a lot of shoe polishing. One of the dry cleaners that the Marines frequented to service their uniforms was ABC Cleaners, which operated out of a small, red- and white-painted building just across the highway from the base. Word traveled fast that they had the lowest prices, but the business produced more than money. Like any dry-cleaning outfit, it also produced tons of waste from the solvent used to clean the uniforms. According to a court deposition, ABC Cleaners used two to three 55-gallon drums of the solvent a month. That’s about three gallons of muck a day.
This dry-cleaning business is across the street from the entrance to my school. The owner used the toxic muck to fill potholes in his parking lot, and threw the rest into the drains.
In other areas on the base, waste was generated and discarded into empty lots, forests, roads, waterways, and makeshift dumps. That toxic waste was then taken by the Carolina rains and summer thunderstorms down toward sea level, into water wells, and into the barracks, houses, trailers, offices, and schools—and finally into the bodies of thousands of Marines and their families: into our cells, into our bones.
An animated timeline of the Lejeune contamination as it unfolded.
(Image: Alana Pipe)
In 2014, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), issued a position on the water at Camp Lejeune. The ATSDR found that “past exposures from the 1950s through February 1985 to trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), vinyl chloride, and other contaminants in the drinking water at the Camp Lejeune likely increased the risk of cancers.”
In addition to those toxins, there was also benzene, a clear, colorless, and highly flammable chemical. When you put gas in your car, that smell you notice is benzene—an important petroleum byproduct that is also used in industrial solvents.
In the universe of environmental contamination, language can be complex, murky, and often confusing. When it comes to benzene, though, the language is like the chemical itself, perfectly clear: Benzene is a carcinogen. Benzene is a well-established cause of cancer in humans, and benzene causes acute myeloid leukemia.
In 2010, the Associated Press found that a contractor “dramatically underreported” the level of benzene found in Lejeune’s tap water. Per the AP’s reporting, in 1992, when ATSDR visited Camp Lejeune to start its public health assessment, they found that a contractor had erroneously documented the 1984 level of benzene in one well was 38 parts per billion—when the actual measurement had been 380 parts per billion. The same contractor’s final report, issued in 1994, conveniently omitted the benzene altogether.
“The Marine Corps had been warned nearly a decade earlier about the dangerously high levels of benzene, which was traced to massive leaks from fuel tanks at the base on the North Carolina coast, according to recently disclosed studies,” the AP reported.
The chemical stew found at Lejeune is made of volatile organic compounds. They are able to vaporize, and, with ultimate stealth, to enter soil and air as gases, which then become your invisible companions. Finally, they come for the ones you love.
WHEN THE WATER BECOMES VAPOR
A friend of mine describes the humid days in North Carolina as feeling like you are in a dog’s mouth. It can be brutal. Take a shower and walk outside and you need another shower. The only thing to do is drink lots of water and search for shade. Our school had an open plan, no enclosed hallways or air-conditioning, so on hot days teachers marched us to the old metal water fountains after recess. Then there were the “black flag days,” which meant that it was too hot for recess. In the cafeteria, we lined up for strange-tasting meat patties on plastic trays that were still warm and damp from the wash cycle. I can still smell all that dirty steam coming from the industrial dishwashers. We were breathing it, the toxic vapors, but the cafeteria ladies serving us were right there in a fog of it all day long, wearing hairnets and gloves out of what is, in retrospect, a heartbreaking concern for the students’ health and safety.
In homes across the country, vaporized poisons from underground can also be stealth killers. The dry-cleaning business down the road might be accidentally responsible for polluting the air in someone’s home. This is because of something called soil vapor intrusion, the process by which chemicals migrate from contaminated soil and groundwater into the air of indoor structures where it then sits, essentially trapped. The EPA issued its first guidance on vapor intrusion in 2002. In 2003, the George W. Bush administration ended that guidance. President Barack Obama then made it a priority—and the EPA released its final Vapor Intrusion Technical Guide in 2015.
Mike Magner, author of A Trust Betrayed, says that he thinks vapor intrusion is “the next big firestorm for the Pentagon, not just at Camp Lejeune but at military bases and former bases around the country.”
“There is plenty of evidence that the air is or has been toxic inside some of Lejeune’s buildings—there are test results being covered up but that will eventually come out—and there is a good possibility that either legislation or litigation will force the government to address this problem,” Magner says. “If the Marines are worried about their liabilities for the water contamination at Camp Lejeune, they ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
Some years ago, I became a member of the Community Assistance Panel, a group mandated by congress to represent the Lejeune community working with the scientists at the CDC and with bureaucrats at the Veterans Administration. Through this work, I’ve learned more about the military’s cover-up of the water contamination, and how the culture that says “Stay Marine” also ensures that some problems remain entombed in secrecy.
The Community Assistance Panel has obtained more than 22,000 documents from an in-progress vapor intrusion study on the buildings at Camp Lejeune up to the present time. The study documents a clear and ongoing risk of exposure, as the groundwater plumes and utility lines—the pathways of exposure—are still located under the buildings.
This summer, a report to the CDC said that a recent test, at a building used as a barracks, had revealed the “highest recorded on-base indoor air TCE [trichloroethylene] detection due to vapor intrusion” since the EPA issued its guidance. This measurement exceeds both state and federal screening levels, which can cause health problems for those exposed, especially women who are in the first trimester of pregnancy. Which brings me back to my mother.
My mother grew up poor on a farm, traumatized (she said) from having to break chicken’s necks, and dropped out of high school mid-way through. But Mary Freshwater knew her powers, and they were a force when she conjured them.
In 2007, the National Academy of Sciences convened a panel to talk about the water at Lejeune. It took place at the Jacksonville USO, the oldest USO building in the country, which sits on banks of New River under old Carolina shade trees. My mother was sitting in the audience while experts went on about statistics until it was time to hear from the people affected by the poisoned water at Camp Lejeune. Mom was there to tell them about Rusty and Charlie, the two babies she’d lost: one born with an open spine, the other with no cranium. Behind my mom, the Marines and family members were there to listen and tell their own stories.
Mary Freshwater in the late 1980s at The Pamper Room, her hair salon in Jacksonville, North Carolina.
(Photo: Lori Lou Freshwater)
Wearing a light pink turtleneck, her hair an uncharacteristic mess, she stepped up to the microphone and placed a small cardboard box on the podium in front of her. In black marker in small letters on the top of the box was the word Baby. This was all my mom had left of Rusty, my brother who had lived a month and died on New Year’s Eve in 1978.
As she spoke, she opened the baby box and unpacked it, eventually holding up a dingy bottle with the nipple still on it and liquid still inside, and a blue onesie, with a yellow stain which she would explain was her son’s vomit that she had not been able to wash.
“We are not numbers in a study. We are human beings that have had great tragedies,” she said.
After my mom died, this same baby box was one of the things I knew I had to find and keep. She had it with her all the time, even as we moved all over the place. It was my family history, but it was also now something public—a part of the country’s history too.
My mom’s leukemia, and her unwillingness to give up the fight, made her extended illness one of terrible suffering. After her death, my mother’s much younger husband fell apart and fell into the bottle again. One night I got a call saying that he hadn’t paid the rent and that the landlady was putting all my mom’s stuff in the old barn out back. Some cousins had already shown up and taken things. I was living in Rhode Island and had to drive down to rural North Carolina overnight. By the time I could get there the place was a mess.
After a few minutes of walking around the house, I was able to find the baby box.
It was sitting with junk, looking like the next candidate for the trash. I went into the kitchen to get some water; it was hot already and I was thirsty. On the counter there was another box, and this one stood out because it was new and had no name.
I opened it. Inside was a clear bag of ash and small fragments of bone. It was what was left of my mama. It was the first time I had seen someone’s ashes like that. It was not what I expected, not elegant ash like the kind the Kennedy’s would puff into the air from their boat and watch settle into the sea. Instead, it was undeniably the remnants of a human being, heavy with bits of stubborn bone.
I went and got my little brother’s box and sat it on the counter too. Right next to her.
And then, after packing up as much as I could, I took them both home.
The New River is not one of the most beautiful rivers. The banks are scrappy, with wild bushes crouched and waiting to sting your legs. It starts and finishes in Onslow County. It is our river, and it seems to say it is majestic until it makes believers out of us all. Sometimes it looks like the banks are falling into the water, like a claw came along and took root and dirt, rot and leaves. This kind of thing can look spooky. Maybe because we want to wonder, but never actually know, what is buried. We don’t want a storm to come along and dig up the things that have been covered, forgotten.
While head injuries are one of the most typical causes of death and impairment in the United States. A bulk of patients with head injuries are dealt with and let go from the emergency clinic.
Blows to the head frequently cause brain injury, however shaking may also trigger damage. The face and jaw are located in the front of the head, and brain injury may also be related to injuries to these structures. It is also essential to note that a head injury does not always suggest that there is also a brain injury.
The brain is a soft and flexible product, almost jelly-like in feel, and is surrounded by a thin layer of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The brain is lined by thin layers of tissue called the meninges; 1) the pia mater, 2) the arachnoid mater, and 3) the dura mater. The cerebrospinal fluid exists in the space below the arachnoid layer called the subarachnoid space.
The dura mater is extremely thick and has septae, or partitions, that help support the brain within the skull. The septae connect to the inner lining of the bones of the skull. The dura mater also aids in the support of the big veins that return blood from the brain to the heart.
The spaces in between the meninges are typically very little however they can fill with blood when trauma happens, and this accumulation of blood can possibly push into the brain tissue and trigger damage.
The skull secures the brain from trauma however it does not absorb any of the impact from a blow. Direct blows may cause fractures of the skull. There can be a contusion or bruising and bleeding to the brain tissue straight beneath the injury area. However, the brain can bounce around, or slosh, inside the skull and due to this fact , the brain injury may not always be located straight below the trauma area. A contrecoup injury describes the situation where the preliminary blow triggers the brain to bounce away from that blow and is harmed by hitting the skull directly opposite the injury area.
Acceleration/deceleration and rotation are the typical kinds of forces that can cause injuries far from the location of the skull that received the injury.
Head injuries, including those due to bleeding are typically classified by the area of the blood within the skull, as follows:
Epidural hematoma: With an epidural hematoma, the bleeding lies in between the dura mater and the skull (epi= exterior). This injury typically takes place along the side of the head where the middle meningeal artery runs in a groove along the temporal bone. This bone is reasonably thin and provides less defense than other parts of the skull. As the bleeding continues, the hematoma or clot expands. There is little space in the skull for the hematoma to grow and as it expands, the adjacent brain tissue is compressed. With increased pressure the brain begins to move and ends up being compressed versus the bones of the skull. The pressure has the tendency to build rapidly because the septae that attach the dura to the skull bones produce little spaces that trap blood. Symptoms of head injury and reduced level of awareness take place as the pressure increases.
Subdural hematoma: A subdural hematoma is located underneath the dura mater (sub= below), in between it and the arachnoid layer. Blood in this area has the ability to dissipate into a bigger area because there are no septae limiting the blood circulation. However, after a time period, the quantity of bleeding may cause increased pressure and trigger signs much like those seen with an epidural hematoma.
Subarachnoid bleed: Subarachnoid bleeding occurs in the area beneath the arachnoid layer where the cerebrospinal fluid is located. Frequently there is intense headache and throwing up with subarachnoid bleeding. Due to the fact that this area is in touch with the back canal, pressure buildup tends not to take place. Nevertheless, this injury often happens in combination with the other kinds of bleeding in the brain and the symptoms might be compounded.
Intra-cerebral bleed: Intra-cerebral bleeding takes place within the brain tissue itself. In some cases the quantity of bleeding is small, but like bruising in any other part of the body, swelling or edema may occur over a period of time, causing a progressive reduction in the level of awareness and other symptoms of head injury.
Large injury: Sometimes, the damage is due to large injury, where there is no obvious bleeding in the brain, but instead the nerve fibers within the brain are extended or torn. Another term for this kind of injury is diffuse axonal injury.
Edema: All injuries to the brain might also trigger swelling or edema, no different than the swelling that surrounds a swelling on an arm or leg. Nevertheless, since the bones of the skull can not stretch to accommodate the additional volume caused by swelling, the pressure increases inside the skull and triggers the brain to compress versus the skull.
Skull fracture: The bones of the skull are classified as flat bones, implying that they do not have an internal marrow. It takes a substantial quantity of force to break the skull, and the skull does not take in any of that impact. It is typically transferred straight to the brain.
Head Injury – Causes
By meaning, forceful injury is required to cause a head injury, however that trauma does not always have to be violent. Dropping a couple of steps or falling on to a solid surface may be enough to cause damage. Motor vehicle crashes account for about 17% of traumatic brain injuries, while 35% are from falls. Most of head injuries take place in males.
Penetrating head injuries describe those scenarios where the injury takes place due to a projectile, for instance a bullet, or when anything is impaled though the skull into the brain.
Closed head injuries describe injuries in which no lacerations exist.
The brain may also be hurt without a direct blow to the skull. The head sits on the neck permitting it to shake, causing the brain to slosh inside the skull and become damaged.
Should I contact an attorney?
If you are suffering from a head injury brought on by the neglect of another or the result of being injured in an auto, truck, or motorbike collision, premises liability accident, or employees’ settlement mishap, contact a Covington LA personal injury lawyer from Covington Personal Injury at 985.206.8060, who can evaluate your case and provide you with answers to your questions.
Although no two motor vehicle accidents are exactly the same, at least one irresponsible motorist is generally accountable for the resulting damages in most cases. In many cases, however, numerous individuals might be held liable.
In truth, there are even instances where individuals aside from drivers might be accountable for damages. These include, however are not limited to: crashes that involve semi-trucks or other business or commercial vehicles; municipal transit authority streetcars & buses; unsafe highways; car flaws; personal buses or scenic tour vehicles; and government automobiles. Our Covington LA personal injury lawyers will completely examine your case to assess liability and pursue the financial compensation you must have to move forward.
Payment
Traffic accident injuries don’t just trigger physical pain and psychological stress, they create a financial concern also. Depending on the scenarios of your accident and the severity of your injuries, you may be entitled to compensation to help cover costs related to:
Medical expenditures
Discomfort and suffering
Lost earnings
Loss of earning capacity
Home damage
Funeral costs and loss of consortium in case of wrongful death
While monetary settlement can not make up for all of your losses, it can make the healing procedure less painful. Our Covington LA personal injury lawyers have the courtroom expertise to take cases to trial when settlement deals are unjust.
Elements that Affect Compensation for Personal Injury
Strong proof makes your claim more powerful. Your Covington LA personal injury attorney will be trying to develop as much supporting evidence as possible when preparing your case.
Elements that will have to be examined include:
The official police report
Whether and how quickly you sought medical attention (Visit the emergency room or your physician as quickly as possible after an accident, if you are injured.).
Any pre-existing injuries that you are declaring worsened as an outcome of the mishap.
Ask your doctor to take brand-new x-rays or ultrasounds of those hurt areas. Comparisons in the pre-accident and post-accident scans can help in showing that the mishap triggered additional damage to the location.
DUI/DWI charges and other citations associated with the mishap.
Statements that you make to other operators or occupants after the accident (Keep in mind that although your emotions may be extreme following a car accident, you must avoid making any statements of blame.).
Eye witness statements.
Photographs taken of the accident scene.
Records and files that confirm the amount of days and earnings you lost due to the mishap.
Personal injury limitations written in your car insurance coverage.
Damages in Personal Injury Cases.
The “damages” in a personal injury case describe the cost of your injuries. They consider the following as they connect to your injuries sustained in a mishap:.
Direct monetary expenses.
Emotional and indirect costs.
Compensatory damages are most common. They consist of the following:.
Specific damages. (This refers to the specific valued amounts related to accident-related injuries or loss.) They consist of:
Expense of medical costs.
Lost incomes.
Loss of earning capability.
Home loss.
General damages. (These damages are those that do not have easily determined dollar quantities and are subjective.) They include:
Discomfort and suffering.
Psychological distress.
Failure to have children as an outcome of accident-related injuries.
Loss of an extremity.
Loss of consortium, if the mishap caused a pressure on your relationship.
If the accused was specifically reckless when triggering the accident, you may also get punitive damages, which are meant to punish the defendant, and are levied by the court.
If you have concerns about damages, your Covington LA personal injury attorney will be able to provide you the information you are seeking.
According to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OHSA), back injuries at work are second only to hand injuries as the most prevalent work environment injury. Common job site back injuries consist of:
Lower back pressure
Bulging, herniated, and slipped discs
Fractured vertebrae
Pinched nerves
Spinal cord damage
Many job site back injuries are the outcome of over-extension (twisting) of the spinal column from heavy lifting, pulling, pressing, or bad posture while sitting for an prolonged period. Back injuries at work are typically painful and need extended treatment and healing time.
Reasons For Back Pain
Pain in the back from a job site injury can have several causes. It can come from a single act, like raising a box that’s too heavy, or from a gradual, consistent pressure on back muscles, ligaments, and the disks protecting your vertebrae. Recurring motions, such as lifting, pulling, pressing, packing, and even sitting incorrectly can ultimately cause your back to become compromised or become strained in some manner.
Back pain can be severe or chronic:
Severe pain comes on rapidly, however decreases within 3 to 6 weeks. While acute neck and back pain can be unbearable, it is short-term. Chronic pain continues for more than 6 weeks. Chronic back pain can be present for many years, and even last a lifetime.
The spine is made up of twenty-four moving vertebrae and 9 that are merged. In between each moving vertebra is a disk. These are filled with fluid and act as shock absorbers, separating and cushioning each vertebra. A back injury can cause one or more disks to protrude or herniate. Without the cushioning disks, vertebrae grate against each other and spine nerves end up being inflamed, triggering pain.
Ligaments of dense tissue around the spine keep the spinal column in place while enabling it to flex and twist. When the spine is severely overextended, the ligaments can stretch out of place or tear, which triggers severe discomfort and stress.
Muscles extend up and down the spine on both sides of the vertebrae. These muscles assist with lifting, pulling or pressing heavy loads. Like muscles throughout the body, over-extension, sprains, and tears can happen. The spinal column surrounds and secures the spine. The spinal cord has countless nerve endings that send out messages in between the brain and body. A spinal cord injury can be physically debilitating and may lead to paralysis or perhaps death.
What to Do If You Suffer a Back Injury at Work
If you sustain an injury at work, you’re entitled to employees’ compensation packages. Those benefits cover your medical and treatment bills, out-of-pocket expenditures, costs of transportation to and from treatment, and approximately two-thirds of your lost earnings. You might also want to seek the suggestions of a skilled Covington, Louisiana personal injury lawyer.
The employees’ comp procedure begins when you initially report your injury to your company or designated manager. The first report of injury is normally submitted on a DWC-1 document. You record particular details about the date, time, and reason for your injury on this injury document. If you’re seriously hurt and have to be hospitalized, you might not have the ability to finish the form till you’re stable.
After reporting your injury, you’ll get a list of company-approved doctors from your employer. You need to pick one as your main physician. The primary doctor is responsible for evaluating you and making recommendations to professionals or other healthcare companies, such as orthopedists, podiatric doctors, or chiropractic specialists. When your physician identifies you’ve reached a level of MMI (Maximum Medical Improvement), she’ll offer you a return to work document. The document indicates whether or not you are cleared to return to your previous type of work.
If your back injury is detected as:
Short-lived partial special needs, you may have the ability to resume your previous workplace tasks after a healing time.
Permanent partial disability, you might be able to return to work, however not at your former workplace responsibilities. If possible, your employer may designate you to another position that accommodates your disability. (If such a position isn’t offered, you may have to look for work somewhere else.).
Irreversible overall disability, you will not have the ability to return to your previous job.
Treatment for Back Pain
Treatment for back injuries at work range from moderate (applying cold and hot compresses), to comprehensive (surgical treatment as a last hope). Your physician may suggest drugs to lower pain and swelling, such as acetaminophen, aspirin, ibuprofen, or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS).
To control severe pain, he or she may recommend narcotic painkillers or other effective medications. Additional treatment can include chiropractic care, massage, ultrasound therapy, and whirlpools.
The majority of injured workers wish to return to work as quickly as possible. Making it through on partial incomes can be demanding and frustrating; however, failing to follow your recommended course of treatment or going back to work before being at a recommended stage can delay your healing. You can be re-injured or get another, secondary injury associated to your main back injury.
Settlement for your Back Injury
You might be able to recover compensation for your costs by filing an insurance coverage claim or personal injury suit. Consulting a Covington LA personal injury lawyer, who focuses on back injuries, can assist you in figuring out the best options for your scenario. Your Covington LA personal injury lawyer will examine your case and collect the evidence needed to support your claim, working to get for you the settlement you deserve.
Craig Hayes 