Catastrophic Injuries Require Significant Medical Treatment

Written by Adam Peck Category: Injury Law January 16th, 2013 3 min read

By “catastrophic,” I mean to refer to injuries which require significant medical treatment, and which usually have a long-term or permanent effect on an injured person’s life. Some injuries are catastrophic, but with good medical attention the injured person can make a good or excellent recovery. Others cause permanent disability, significant suffering, and may substantially shorten an injured person’s lifespan indicates California Serious Injury Attorney Steven C. Peck.

It is often a good idea to seek specialized legal assistance with catastrophic injury cases. For example, some personal injury attorneys have a much better understanding of closed head injuries or burn injuries than others. A catastrophic injury can necessitate a lifetime of medical care, or repeated reconstructive surgeries. It is helpful to have an attorney who understands the treatment and recovery process. A severely burned child may require repeated surgeries to accommodate growth, in addition to various cosmetic surgeries. A child with a bone fracture that affects a growth plate may face difficult bone-stretching procedures, and may never have normal use of an affected limb. If an attorney understands the long-term effects of an injury, the attorney will be better able to argue for just compensation.

When a person suffers a spinal cord injury, the person may face a life of disability and dependency. An active person can suddenly become an invalid, with injuries that cannot be treated by even the most advanced medical treatments. While there is always hope of a future medical advance which will ameliorate or even cure spinal cord injuries, at present medical science is limited. A parent whose child suffers a brain or spinal cord injury may suddenly find that the child requires full-time care. A brain injury may cause a personality change, causing a spouse, parent or child to suddenly seem like a different person.

One of the true tragedies of life is that many people are catastrophically injured, but cannot recover adequately for their injuries. Legislatures throughout the country have imposed caps on “non-economic” damages, which can be ridiculously low. Ironically, studies indicate that huge jury verdicts are rare, and that most injury victims are undercompensated. By misrepresenting the exceptional case as the norm, insurance companies have successfully protected their wealth at the expense of society’s most vulnerable injury victims.

The worst and most dangerous drivers often carry the lowest possible amount of insurance that the law allows, or carry no insurance at all. Few people would voluntarily allow themselves to suffer even a simple fracture of a bone, even for tens of thousands of dollars. The amount of suffering that results from living a lifetime with disfiguring scars, or with a spinal cord or brain injury, is inconceivable. Our society really should do more to take care of its own — to make sure that people who suffer catastrophic injuries do not effectively lose their right to a reasonably normal life, just because an insurance company successfully lobbied for damages caps on personal injury or malpractice actions as is in the case of California.

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Written by Adam Peck

Expertise: Personal Injury

Adam J. Peck, ESQ is a principal with Peck Law Group, APC. In 2008, Mr. Adam Peck received his Juris Doctorate from Whittier Law School where he graduated Cum Laude. His practice is primarily dedicated to representing Elders, Dependent Adults, along with their loved ones and family members, who have suffered horrific personal injuries.