Best Ways to Gather Evidence for a Personal Injury Claim in Indiana

If you’ve been injured because of another party’s negligence or intentional wrongful act, you may have grounds to file a personal injury claim in Indiana. In order to do so, you and your attorney must collect evidence to support your compensation claim.

There are several ways to gather evidence for a personal injury claim in Indiana. Immediately following an incident, victims should report it to the necessary parties, including law enforcement, take photos, and gather the names and contact info of any witnesses. Once you have hired an Indiana personal injury lawyer, they can interview witnesses and preserve and review any available security camera footage. A lawyer will likely advise victims to seek continuous medical care to make sure they receive the health care needed and their injuries are well-documented. At the end of the day, victims can preserve and gather evidence best when they have a skilled attorney by their side overseeing the investigation.

Wruck Paupore is dedicated to helping Indiana victims pursue personal injury lawsuits against responsible individuals. Call us today for a free case evaluation with the Indiana personal injury attorneys at Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166.

What Are the Best Ways to Gather Evidence for a Personal Injury Claim in Indiana?

In a personal injury claim against a negligent party in Indiana, gathering evidence is crucial. While there are steps you can take in the immediate aftermath of an incident to collect evidence, an Indiana personal injury attorney can be invaluable in your efforts to preserve and compile evidence necessary to support your claim against a negligent party. For instance, victims should always report an incident and take photos of the scene if possible. Your attorney may then interview witnesses, work with law enforcement, review security camera footage, and make sure all other evidence is preserved which might support your claim. Finally, seeking continuous medical care after an incident can allow your attorney to use your medical records as evidence of injury in your Indiana lawsuit.

Report an Incident

Regardless of the details of your personal injury claim, victims should always report an incident to the necessary parties. For example, suppose you were injured in a car accident caused by a negligent driver. In that case, it is wise and often legally required to alert law enforcement officials to the scene to complete a crash report. These documents can be complicated, so it benefits you to enlist help from our experienced lawyers to review a crash report.

Or perhaps an injury occurred on someone else’s property or business. In that case, victims should report it to property owners or their employees. If you were injured while patronizing a business or restaurant, inform management and owners. Reporting an incident is crucial so that our attorneys can show that you took the necessary steps after you sustained your injuries and to trigger the legal duty of the property owner to preserve evidence, such as security footage.

Take Photos of the Scene

If you are capable, take photos of the area after an incident. Snapping photographs with your smartphone can help your lawyer make sense of the scene. For example, suppose you were patronizing a store and slipped on a wet floor that had no sign indicating so. Photos of the scene can show that a business’s negligence contributed to your injuries because it did not inform you of potential danger.

Also take photos of any visible injuries you have suffered. These photos can dramatically illustrate your injuries which can be important when seeking legal recovery.

Interview Witnesses

Once you have hired our attorneys to represent your interests in a lawsuit against a negligent party, they can begin to gather evidence on your behalf. This may entail interviewing witnesses to the incident. Your lawyer can speak with eyewitnesses who can corroborate your claims against a responsible party. Depending on the nature of the incident and where it occurred, that may mean speaking with your fellow employees or other store patrons. Interviewing witnesses should be reserved for experienced Indianapolis personal injury lawyers and is not something victims should do independently.

Review Security Camera Footage

An experienced lawyer can uncover additional forms of evidence victims may not have considered themselves. For example, there may be security camera footage depending on where an incident occurred. When you inform our lawyers of an incident’s location, they can request access to security camera footage that may have filmed an incident. If such footage exists, your skilled attorney can use it to support your compensation claim against a negligent party.

Some areas that appear private and without cameras may not be. For example, suppose a neighbor’s negligence caused your injuries. While it may seem as though there is no available footage of the incident to a victim, our lawyers may be able to cover footage from private security cameras. Our skilled professionals can think outside the box to uncover helpful evidence and send the appropriate letters to preserve the evidence to support your claim against a negligent party.

Preserve Electronic Information

In many cases, there may be an electronic trail of information that can be very important but may be lost or erased in the event you do not have a lawyer to act quickly to preserve it.

For example, many consumer vehicles have on-board vehicle data recorders which has information that is often critical in an auto accident case. While many people are aware of the “black box” that is used to determine the cause of airline crashes, many people are surprised that most passenger cars produced in the last 15-years have similar equipment that can identify the cause of a crash.

Similarly, many commercial vehicles often have additional equipment. For example, semi-trucks frequently have dashboard cameras as well as other onboard electronic devices which will show exactly how an accident occurred.

Unfortunately, all of this data is likely to disappear if you don’t act immediately to preserve it and bring in appropriate experts to retrieve it. Onboard vehicle recording data is often overwritten if the vehicle is driven again after the accident. Therefore it is important the evidence is preserved and retrieved before this happens.

These systems are all technical and require a qualified technician with proper equipment to download the data. You will not be able to retrieve it yourself. However, we keep these experts on-call for immediate action and are able to demand access to this data as soon as we are contacted after an accident.

Seek Ongoing Medical Care

If you hire our team to represent your interests, they will undoubtedly advise you to seek appropriate medical care. While you may have visited a doctor immediately after an incident, continuing to do so is crucial if it is medically necessary. This not only ensures you get the care you require but also ensures that there is adequate medical documentation of your injuries. A doctor can speak to the likely cause and corroborate the severity of your injuries. Using this evidence, your Hammond, IN personal injury lawyer can fight for appropriate compensatory damages that reflect the true cost of your injuries.

In many cases, we are contacted by people who have suffered significant injuries but have not received proper medical attention so there is no documentation to support these claims. This makes it much more difficult to recover, although we can attempt to prove your injuries in other ways.

Often people do not seek medical treatment because they do not have insurance or the money to pay doctors out of pocket. There are a number of ways you may still be able to get the medical treatment you need, however, and we work with accident victims to help them get the medical treatment necessary even if they don’t have the money to pay doctors immediately. Contact us and we can review a number of options available to assist you in getting the medical care you need as part of your personal injury claim.

Call Our Indiana Attorneys for Personal Injury Claims Today

Indiana victims need help gathering evidence to support their claim against a negligent party. Call us today for a free case evaluation with the Fort Wayne personal injury attorneys at Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166.