Maryland Car Accident Attorney Blog
Personal injury and property damage are two of the main results of most any traffic accident. Whether you live in Rockville, Annapolis, the District or here in Baltimore, a serious automobile, truck or motorcycle collision can put one or more people in the hospital with potentially life-altering injuries.
Car, cycle and commercial trucking wrecks are usually caused by one or more factors, not the least of which may include a drunk or distracted driver, an uninsured or under-insured motorist, an inexperienced or under-qualified truck driver, or a negligent hit-and-run driver, among others. As a roadway accident victim or relative of an individual injured or killed in a highway collision, sometimes litigation is the only option to recovering sometimes huge medical costs and rehabilitation expenses following a serious traffic wreck.
As Maryland personal injury attorneys, I and my colleagues know the pain and suffering that even a moderate fender-bender can cause, much less a violent roll-over crash or head-on collision. Injuries sustained in the worst of these accidents can entail whiplash and other injuries to the neck and spine, nerve damage and possible paralysis, simple and compound fractures of the legs and arms, as well as potentially fatal closed-head trauma.
In many instances, passenger car occupants who do sustain injuries in a car or truck crash may not always realize the aftereffects of certain soft tissue injuries. These types of injuries typically pertain to injury of one or more elements of the musculoskeletal system (also referred to as the locomotor system); these can include muscles, tendons, ligaments as well as other connective body tissues.
Traffic accidents, depending on the severity, can often result in soft tissue injuries in the area of the head, neck and back. As stated previously, whiplash is a common cause of soft tissue injury to the neck — this is usually a result of a rather violent fore-aft motion of the head during a rear-end car or commercial truck collision.
Many insurance companies attempt to minimize the seriousness of soft tissue injuries received by an accident victim in an attempt to avoid paying what we refer to as fair and just compensation to the injured person in question. The trouble is that certain soft tissue injuries may not always be easy to detect and document, yet the pain and discomfort experienced by the victim is certainly quite real.
This situation — that of the negligent party’s insurance company trying to downplay any claimed soft tissue injuries by the victim and his or her family — can be very frustrating for many people, especially when that individual’s medical costs are mounting up every day following a car wreck.
Of course, any person who suffers from a soft tissue injury may have trouble moving his or her neck. Related issues can complicate the diagnosis, such as chronic back pain or muscle-related spasms of the shoulders, and even serious recurring headaches. Not only do soft tissue injuries take time from which to recover one’s health, the injury itself can interfere with the victim’s ability to work or function at all in their job, sometimes requiring that the victim take time off work in order to regain his or her health on a par with their pre-crash condition.
Since it can be a major challenge to recover damages for certain soft tissue injuries, it is always a good idea to consult a qualified personal injury and auto accident lawyer to learn one’s options and understand next steps going forward.