Orlando Car Accident Lawyer

Once you have hired a car wreck lawyer, what can you expect them to do for you and your family? We can tell you what we do. We:

1. Open your file and let the insurance companies know we represent you. We advise them to not talk to you personally anymore unless we give them permission, so YOU do NOT need to be bothered by insurance adjusters who do not care about you at all.
2. We directly report your claim to all the auto insurance companies
3. We advise you how to get the best money for your car if totaled and how to get your car fixed if it is still salvageable.
4. We check to see if your medical providers are legitimate, caring and professional and make sure you are on course with your medical treatment
5. Investigate your car accident claim by ordering police reports, obtaining witness statements, video recordings and photographic evidence of the crash and any injuries you sustained. In some cases, we use our private investigator to discover other fact witnesses who can help us argue that the defendant was at fault for the accident.
6. Negotiate with medical providers on outstanding bills that may not be paid until the conclusion of your case
7. Help you document your injuries, lost wages and economic opportunities, medical expense and anything that could negatively impact your future because of this accident
8. We obtain causation reports from doctors to help us prove that the cause of your injury was related to this accident.
9. Be a friendly ear to listen to you if you become frustrated as you are trying to get back to work and recover from your injuries
10. Present a claim to the insurance company and get you fair compensation for the automobile accident you were in.
11. File a motor vehicle crash lawsuit if the insurance company does not settle fairly and either get more compensation for you during the suit, mediate or settle your case or take your case to a jury or judge trial to get you what you deserve
12. We advance costs to hire experts, investigate and showcase your case to a jury to give you the best chance to win at trial if needed.

Most people know that people suffer neck and back injuries in an accident. However, there are many more injuries that people suffer that the public does not know about. You can sustain other injuries from bracing, being struck by other objects in the car, making an impact with the interior of the car, or taking any evasive actions to avoid the accident such as slamming on the brakes. The following are some of the types of injuries you can sustain after a car accident in the Orlando area:

• Neck and back: Of course, the most common injuries, most people may suffer are whiplash injuries to the neck from the violent nature of your head snapping back and forth or side to side in a car accident. You can also sustain spinal cord injuries such as soft tissue tears, ligamentous tears, disc ruptures, disc bulges and herniations, cord impingement, nerve damage, and joint and facet tears. You may face surgery such as fusion, reconstruction, discectomies, laminectomy or a laminotomy to name a few. You can aggravate an old injury that was either asymptomatic or symptomatic and degenerative. Yes, a car accident can make an old neck and back complaints worse! In the worst cases, the impact from a crash can cause spinal cord injuries such as paralysis, quadriplegia, tetraplegia and paraplegia and require someone to be rehabilitating their entire life.
• Leg: Leg fractures commonly seen in a car accident are breaks of the tibia and femur. In rarer cases, your clients have also had fibula fractures. The tibia is in the front of your shin. Tibia fractures usually result from direct force impact and typically are seen in side-impact collisions. Because your tibia is so strong, it rarely is broken unless a high-speed auto impact or collision with a truck or tractor-trailer. You can also fracture your fibula, a small bone located on the outside part of your lower leg. The most common fibula fracture is an ankle fracture and “tib-fib” fractures that happen in conjunction with the tibia. Treatments can be serious. Many people who break their legs in car accidents face closed or open reduction procedures to stabilize the broken bones. A Closed Reduction means setting the bone without surgery and then immobilizing the fracture. Surgeons perform Open Reductions to surgically correct the bone and then stabilize the bone with internal fixation (seating the bone with screws, plates and rods that stay forever in the body). If an open reduction will not work, surgeons will perform external fixation using pins, clams and rods to stabilize the broken bone from the outside of the leg.
• Shoulder injuries: You can hurt your shoulder by bracing for impact on the steering wheel or your shoulder hitting the door panel. Seat belt restraint systems can also hurt the shoulder depending on the force of impact. Often people suffer from shoulder tears, impingement syndrome and torn rotator cuffs in many accidents. Additionally, you can also aggravate an old shoulder injury resulting in making an old shoulder complaint worse.
• Foot injuries: This injury is so common, yet many doctors do not diagnose this injury. If you slam on the breaks to avoid an accident, you can sustain injuries to your Achilles, tendons, and other ligaments in the foot. If you are wearing high heels, you may be even more prone to some foot injury as a result of the force of impact because you are driving your heel down to avoid impact.
• Knee injuries: You can fracture or bruise your knees if they strike the dashboard. Additionally, you can tear your meniscus or ligaments if your knee is twisted or turned in the crash.
• Elbow injuries; You can often sustain force to your elbow when you brace in an auto accident or if the elbow strikes any part of the interior of the car. Again, you could suffer bruising, tearing and lacerations to the elbow.
• Wrist and hand: You can suffer from distal radius fractures from a crash resulting in a broken wrist. In many cases, those injuries may require surgery. In other cases, you can sustain or aggravate a carpal tunnel in your wrist that may require a release for you to resolve your pain.
• Fractures and broken bones: You can break any bone in your body as a result of your car accident. People usually break their bones from the impact but can also be hit by external objects that are in the car and even from the car crushing interiorly. The more common fractures are.
• Vertebrae fractures: These vertebral fractures often result from a rear-end crash or head-on collision where your body is impacted by the seat belt or airbags. In some cases, they can be fatal.
• Clavicle: The clavicle is one of the weaker bones in the body and because it is exposed is always at risk of being broken. You will see this often in intersection accidents or what is commonly referred to as side-impact or T-boned collisions.
• Ribs: Broken ribs are one of the most painful injuries you can get in a car crash. The good news is that usually, people recover successfully without permanent restriction.
• Ankle: In head-on collisions, the front of a car is designed to crumple on impact. If you are hitting your breaks as you see the oncoming car, you stand a chance that if the collision is hard enough, that the interior of the car will crush your foot and lead to an ankle fracture. Most ankle fractures will require surgical repair by an orthopedic surgery team at the emergency room.
• Burns: You can sustain burns when a car catches on fire or even if your body encounters hot interior surfaces of auto, steam, chemicals or very hot fluids. You may sustain minor burns such as first or second degree or major ones like third and fourth-degree burns that may require skin grafting and surgery. Some of these burns are bad enough that they can lead to shock, sepsis and tetanus along with scarring and nerve damage.
• Chest injuries: We have seen sternums crushed by head-on collisions unfortunately and cases where people fracture their clavicle. These injuries are serious and usually involved head-on-car or truck accidents. Many clients who have breast implants also could have complications from the airbag or impact with the interior of the car. In some cases, clients have had to have breast implants repaired or removed and replaced.
• Traumatic brain injury: Some injuries are not easy to see. If you hit your head in a car accident either by bumping it on the mirror, side window or banging it hard on the headrest, you could sustain a brain injury. Some people suffer from concussions and brain injuries that can be minor or have a long-lasting impact on brain functions. Depression, impaired memory and cognitive function, personality disorders, and decreased movement and sensation may be prevalent.
• Scarring: You can get cuts from glass shattering, striking the window or steering wheel or from objects flying around the car during the collision. If these cuts are deep enough you may sustain scarring including permanent disfigurement. Some of our clients have had to go through major plastic surgery to remove scars or try to reduce the permanent reminder of the crash.
• Internal injuries: You can sustain internal bleeding from car crashes. Sometimes a closed or open injury to your head can result in a brain bleed. We have seen where clients have ruptured their spleens that require surgery to fix almost all the time.
• Organ injuries: You can hurt any organ in a car crash especially in high-speed impacts. We have seen liver lacerations and kidney damage and if not addressed immediately could result in permanent damage.
• Post-traumatic stress disorder: Ever been in an accident where you saw your life pass in front of you or you saw a loved one get hurt badly? PTSD or Post-traumatic stress disorder is commonly found in people who have been in bad car accidents. You can be afraid to even get behind the wheel of a car and suffer so much anxiety you need to be placed on medication.
• Pelvis: According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, over fifteen percent of collisions result in injury to the pelvis. Although seat belts save lives by preventing you from being flung forward, the force of impact can still push back onto you especially where you are strapped in. Unfortunately, that pressure may be applied to your pelvic region which can crush, fracture and break the bone. Additionally, in head-on accidents, the airbag, steering wheel and even the dashboard could implode in your pelvic region causing horrible injury.

Fractures are serious and, in most cases, you will require casting, physical medicine, physical therapy and surgery to address the damage to the bone. If your bones do not heal or fuse after treatment for a car or truck accident you may face permanent injuries. If you have broken or fractured a bone in an Orlando car collision it usually will be classified as:

• Transverse: Basically, your bone snapped into two pieces.
• Compound: Compound fractures are horrible. The broken bone will stick out from the skin and as a result, there is a very big risk that infection will ensue.
• Comminuted: If you have a comminuted fracture, you likely broke your bone in more than three pieces. These injuries often require surgery and they are very difficult to repair
• Avulsion: Avulsion fractures happen when the ligaments and tendons of soft tissue separate from the bone. Avulsion fractures can be painful and often need surgical intervention.
• Stress fractures: Usually seen in kids, their fractures are partial breaks and usually not as serious as the fractures above.
• Hairline: hairline fractures are small cracks in the bone. Many accident victims do not realize they have a hairline fracture. If left untreated, the fracture can heal on its own or get worse resulting in the weakening of the bone.

How Long Will Your Car Accident Claim Take?

In central Florida, most Orlando car accident lawyers will tell you there is a two-year deadline (with some exceptions) to resolve your case. While that is legally true in most cases, some people who are injured may take over ten years to resolve their matter and others could settle within weeks or less! Every case is different. If someone has ongoing treatment that may last for more than two years, it may be advisable for a lawyer in some cases to file a lawsuit thereby tolling the statute of limits beyond two years. In this scenario, a client may end up getting the treatment they need and then later settle their case for the most amount of money after they have gotten ALL their treatment conducted. Most smaller cases usually resolve within six months to a year. Once the client has finished treatment and the lawyer has collected all the records, bills, evidence the case may be ready to be resolved. Once you finish treatment, an attorney will write a letter to the insurance company called a demand or offer to settle and begin to negotiate the case on your behalf. Good lawyers will never settle a case quickly unless they are sure they are getting maximum value for their client in an auto case.