By definition, life-changing events are an upheaval of the status quo, throwing your planning and your peace of mind into disarray. Traumatic injuries rank among the most jarring of these life-changing events. With the right help and by taking the proper steps, you can deal with the mental, physical, social, and financial fall-out of a traumatic injury.
After a traumatic injury, finding immediate medical help may be the only thing on your mind. A scaffold at your workplace fails and you break your leg in multiple places … so you go to the emergency room. An intoxicated snowboarder rams you at high speed on the ski field. You are experiencing double vision and headaches a week later. You go to the doctor, who schedules emergency surgery. Your neighbor’s dog lunges at your face when you check your mail. You lay still while your partner rings an ambulance.
(Viki_B / pixabay)
First Things First
No one wants to deal with these traumatic events. In the unhappy event of a traumatic injury, most of us would know what needed to be done first: find qualified medical care to treat the traumatic injury quickly. The practical side of things is often the most immediate and the most straightforward after a traumatic injury.
You are going to the emergency room when you see bones protruding from your leg – there’s no second-guessing or wondering if this was the right thing to do. You don’t refuse when the doctor takes you in for emergency surgery because of a dangerous brain bleed. You get in the ambulance when your cheek is in shreds. The immediate choices are clear. You treat the traumatic injury as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. You listen to medical professionals, and you act immediately on their professional counsel.
The vast majority of people who experience trauma intuitively use their full attention to manage the physical injury itself, without using too much energy thinking about the emotional, social, or financial consequences from the injury. You are in the emergency room to get treatment for an open fracture and relief from the pain, not wondering how much distress you will feel in a year from now when your boss orders you to get on a questionable scaffold or else lose your job. You are holding hands with your loved ones as the anesthesiologist puts you under full anesthesia, not wondering how your family will cope next year when you are still so fatigued that you can’t finish a full day’s work. You are in and out of shock because of blood loss, not wondering who will cover your shift in 6 months’ time so you can attend a physical therapy appointment to improve the strength in your cheek muscles so you can speak properly. You don’t imagine that you’ll still be waking up at night with nightmares for months after the trauma.
While the immediate and practical response to trauma can be obvious and straightforward, the long-term emotional, social, and financial fallout can feel like a long, winding journey. The decisions that need to be made are not always clear. The results that you want might be elusive and delayed.
Coping with the aftermath of a traumatic injury is more tedious and difficult than many people expect. However, with the right help and realistic expectations, you can cope and even thrive.
How a Traumatic Injury Attorney Can Help You Thrive
When large groups of white settlers first populated Las Vegas in the early 1900s, people recovered from open fractures of their legs; but the injured person might have lost their mobility or suffered from dangerous infection. In comparison, an injured person with the benefit of modern medicine might expect to make a full recovery from a similar injury. In pioneer times, an undiagnosed brain bleed might have made someone an invalid for life, and a dangerous dog bite might have caused debilitating disfigurement.
Medical professionals do more than help these kinds of patients survive: they help them thrive. Modern medicine can minimize the long-term fallout from traumatic injury.
Likewise, the right attorney—be it a Las Vegas traumatic brain injury attorney, dog bite injury attorney, etc.—can minimize the long-term fallout from traumatic injury and help you thrive. Granted, you may survive the long-term fallout from traumatic injury without help from a lawyer. You can wade through insurance paperwork, ask your family to step in to take up the burden of your financial losses or lingering PTSD. But why just survive when you could thrive?
A personal injury lawyer is trained to glimpse the future that you can’t see. Your lawyer will help you know what records you need to create now in order to get the compensation you deserve a year from now. Your lawyer will help you maintain realistic expectations about a timeline to compensation. Your lawyer will take on the big insurance companies who often make lowball offers or require particular protocols. Your lawyer knows how to put your pain and suffering into legal terminology so that it will be included in settlement negotiations. Your lawyer knows how to help you receive compensation that covers the emotional, social, and financial fallout experienced by your loved ones, as well as yourself.
Many people worry about the cost of hiring a lawyer, but you can select an accident injury attorney in Las Vegas whose fees will be taken out of the reward you receive from the negligent party. After a traumatic injury caused by the negligence of another, hiring a lawyer is an important step toward learning to cope and thrive.