Fort Wayne Brain Injury Lawyer

Injuries that affect the brain are particularly serious and should be treated with the utmost care. This includes in terms of medical treatment and legal representation. Whether you suffered your brain injury because of a car accident, falling object, slip and fall, medical malpractice, or some other cause, you deserve representation from experienced attorneys.

If you believe that you sustained a brain injury, it is imperative that you report the incident and seek immediate medical assessment at your nearest emergency room. Once these steps have been accomplished, waste no time reaching out for legal representation.

At Wruck Paupore, our seasoned Fort Wayne brain injury lawyers are your best resource for effective legal guidance in your recovery. Learn more in a free initial case assessment when you call our offices today at (219) 322-1166.

Common Causes of Brain Injury in Fort Wayne

People are susceptible to brain injury in a variety of circumstances. However, in the experience of our Fort Wayne brain injury attorneys, there are several areas where we see traumatic brain injuries occur most frequently.

Car Accidents

Year in and year out, vehicular collisions are a leading cause of brain injury. Head trauma is particularly common in cases of accidents involving motorcyclists, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Though safety features on vehicles have improved substantially in recent years, the force created by a crash can cause serious head injuries that will require immediate attention. Even situations where there is no direct impact to the head can cause diffuse axonal injuries which result from sudden movement that causes the brain to shift inside the skull, resulting in shearing injuries.

Falling Objects

Though we tend to ignore this cause, objects falling from heights pose a serious risk for the unsuspecting people below. These accidents occur at their highest frequency in urban areas and construction sites that use scaffolding or cranes. Even small objects have the potential to cause real harm if they make contact with the human head at high speeds.

Slip and Falls

Unstable or uneven ground, or the presence of slippery foreign material, can cause individuals to fall and hit their heads on the ground or surrounding objects. Curing these issues is typically the property owner's responsibility unless they have contracted with another party to maintain their grounds. Even if the conditions are caused by inclement weather, chances are that someone owes a duty to make the area safe for walking.

Medical Malpractice

When a patient goes to a medical facility, they trust the providers that work there. When these individuals (or the facility as a whole) abuse this trust, serious consequences could result. Medical care providers may be liable for causing a new brain injury and negligently failing to diagnose an existing brain injury.

What to Do After Sustaining a Brain Injury in Fort Wayne

Brain injuries can cloud your judgment and lead you to miss out on key steps that you will want to be handled in the wake of your incident. That is why our Fort Wayne brain injury attorneys have provided the following helpful tips for protecting both your physical health and financial well-being.

Report the Accident

If you are able, the first step after suffering a brain injury is to make sure that the incident is reported through the proper channels. In many cases where the incident occurs in a public area, such as in car accidents, the best way to do this may be to call 911. If the incident occurred on private property or at your place of work, the property owner or your employer may have specific channels for submitting a report, which should be done in addition to calling emergency services. This reporting is often time-sensitive, so it is important that you and your Fort Wayne brain injury lawyer explore these options before it is too late.

Go to an Emergency Room

Once you have left the scene of the incident, your first stop should be your nearest hospital. Getting medical attention immediately serves both your personal health and your long-term monetary recovery interests. If you believe you’ve suffered a head injury, it is highly advisable that you are transported by ambulance.

Thorough medical evaluation and care early on can help quell the consequences of a brain injury that is left untreated. You may require the services of medical testing and lab work that are only available at hospitals in order to obtain a diagnosis of your brain injury. Brain injuries are particularly troubling in this area, as many forms of these conditions may not be immediately apparent to the victim in the wake of the incident that caused them. If you have any reason to suspect that you sustained a brain injury, we urge you to call an ambulance for hospital transport immediately.

While urgent care facilities are an alternative to emergency rooms, these locations may not have the capabilities to diagnose and treat some types of brain injuries. They may end up just sending you to the emergency room anyway. Primary care offices may not have immediate appointments available and often have the same issues with diagnostic capabilities for brain injuries as urgent care.

Document What Occurred

Your first priority must always be getting necessary medical attention. To maximize your chances of legal recovery, it is also important to preserve as much information as possible about what happened. Photographs of a car accident scene or the area where you fell are especially important.

If you are able to take these with your smartphone yourself, that is helpful. If your condition is such that you cannot, however, call a friend or loved one and have them go to the scene of the accident and take pictures on your behalf.

Contact Your Fort Wayne Brain Injury Attorney

Obtaining medical treatment should be your first priority. Your next priority should be bringing your situation to the attention of a Fort Wayne brain injury lawyer.

By acting quickly, you can ensure that attorneys are working to gather and preserve the evidence necessary for you to obtain the best legal recovery. Examples of this evidence include witness statements and, in the case of auto accidents, retrieval of on-board vehicle recorder (black box) data that is often lost within days of the accident if it is not retrieved. In the case of a slip and fall, this would include acting to take photographs of the scene and ensuring that security or other camera footage that may have captured your fall is preserved.

We will also work to document the medical recovery process after your incident. Often, brain injury victims will need to go through difficult physical therapy. Recording and documenting the grueling aspects of this path to recovery is important to obtaining the full recovery you are entitled to. Action should be taken in the time immediately following the incident, as many forms of evidence, both physical and testimonial, can dry up over time.

It is also important to have lawyers involved as soon as possible so that we can take over all communications with the at-fault parties or their insurance companies. This can help avoid common pitfalls of making statements against your own interest and will allow you to focus on your own physical recovery.

Our Fort Wayne Brain Injury Lawyers Are Available to Help You Recover Today

To learn more about your legal rights and how we can help, obtain a free case evaluation now by calling the Fort Wayne brain injury attorneys at Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166.