Gwinnett County Traumatic Brain Injury Attorneys

The federal Centers for Disease Control define a traumatic brain injury, or TBI, as a “bump, blow, or jolt to the head” that disrupts normal brain function. This can range from mild to severe—from a bump on the head that raises a knot and gives you a headache up to a head injury that penetrates the skull and causes permanent brain damage. Roughly two million TBIs every year are at least severe enough to get treated or reported.

Doctors categorize the vast majority as “mild,” although some TBIs diagnosed as “mild” cause lifelong disabilities. Severe TBIs can result in catastrophic injuries that result in permanent severe impairment of brain function or even death. The most severe TBIs involve penetration of the skull and often are the result of major traffic accidents. All TBIs—even those considered mild—can have long-term consequences.

Federal statistics indicate that the vast majority of TBIs are a result of everyday life. Nearly half of all TBIs are the result of falls. Being struck by or against an object—getting hit in the head by a ball or standing up into a fixed object, for example—ranks second on the list. The third leading cause of TBIs is traffic accidents. Sports injuries, assaults, and self-inflicted wounds—generally from suicide attempts—also are leading causes. Motorcycle accidents, a small subset of traffic accidents, tend to result in more severe TBIs, especially when the rider is not wearing a helmet.

However, a federal study determined that modern safety equipment in automobiles has reduced the number of severe TBIs in car crashes while actually increasing the number of milder TBIs. You can stop the head from going through the windshield, but the skull still gets tossed around, and the brain bounces around inside the skull, resulting in TBIs such as concussions. Of the roughly two million TBIs suffered every year, about 1.1 million of those cases—including from traffic accidents—will involve only a mild TBI that doesn’t result in admission to a hospital.

A mild TBI involves either no period of unconsciousness at the time of the injury or less than 30 minutes of unconsciousness. Mild TBIs are also caused concussions and show few apparent effects beyond temporary disorientation, at least at the time of initial diagnosis. Many sports injuries where a player “got his or her bell rung” fit this description, with the injured player “seeing stars” for a bit after impact. Most such injuries don’t result in a trip to the emergency room and thus are not diagnosed as concussions, even though they might actually involve brain damage.

Even if such an injury results in a trip to the emergency room, doctors generally will call a brain injury “mild” so long as the injury results in a period of unconsciousness lasting less than 30 minutes. The disorientation or cloudy thinking also would be expected to last less than half an hour in the event of such a minor brain injury. Even so, a TBI that fits these parameters still could cause lifelong disabilities, so don’t discount seeing a doctor right away.

While a mild TBI can range from almost undetectable symptoms to a significant concussion, a severe TBI is considerably easier to diagnose. Severe TBI involves either a loss of consciousness lasting more than a half-hour accompanied by at least some memory loss after the injury, or an injury that penetrates the skull and injures the brain. Severe TBIs can impair high-order brain functions or physical functions, or even result in long-lasting comatose states. In fact, more than 150 people die each day as a result of TBIs.

Severe TBIs, depending upon how bad the injury is, can cause emotional problems, lasting loss of memory, an inability to concentrate or think through complicated issues, speech impairment, paralysis, coma, or even death. Even if the injury is not fatal, conditions arising from severe TBIs often require years of treatment or even life-long medical care, which can be extremely costly in the short term and add up to millions of dollars over a lifetime.

Even a head injury diagnosed as a mild TBI can have long-term effects. Because a minor TBI involves less-serious initial symptoms than a severe TBI, doctors in hospital emergency rooms, where many mild TBIs are first diagnosed and treated, are sometimes inclined to take a lack of immediate symptoms at face value and not pursue further treatment.

Even so, a mild TBI that yields a normal brain scan can nonetheless eventually cause lasting health problems if not properly treated, including persistent headaches, loss of memory, difficulty concentrating or paying attention for extended periods, shifting moods, or an inability to focus on complicated issues. Studies indicate that about 15 percent of those suffering mild TBIs have many of these continuing symptoms that can prove debilitating for extended periods of time.

Failure to obtain proper treatment at the time of the injury can exacerbate this effect, and a continued lack of treatment can make the symptoms difficult or even impossible to treat later on if doctors fail to make the connection between the symptoms and the initial TBI.

The consequences of TBIs can be lifelong, completely disabling, and resistant to rehabilitation. Even in instances where healing time or therapy, or both, can help return you to your pre-injury condition—or even just to a condition where you can once again function independently—it also is possible that such a recovery simply isn’t in the cards.

You could permanently suffer from limited use of some or all of your limbs, total loss of function of your arms or legs, impaired speech, impaired brain functions that interfere with your ability to concentrate or solve even simple problems, memory loss, or emotional regulation problems. Therapy may help you recover from some or even all of these problems, but it also is possible the conditions you suffer as a result of a severe TBI will be with you for the rest of your life.

Following a severe TBI, you may have to undergo years of rehabilitation therapy for both physical and mental impairments and still never totally recover. You may never regain the ability to properly perform your job, take part in community activities, or fully participate in your family life. In turn, these issues can harm your behavioral and emotional health above and beyond the immediate physical and mental injuries you already suffered.

The answer generally is yes to both. Your medical claims should be filed against your auto insurance first. If you reach your coverage limits for your auto insurance medical coverage, you can then file against your health insurance, subject to any deductible. If you have sufficient medical coverage under your auto insurance policy, you might not have to pay anything for your medical bills. However, if your medical bills exceed your auto coverage limits, anything you submit to your health insurance company will be subject to the deductible, which is the amount you have to pay yourself before the insurance company begins to pay.

The amount of your deductible depends upon your policy. Also, your health insurance policy likely has a subrogation clause, meaning if you recover damages for your injuries from another party, either the person responsible for your injuries or their insurance company, you must reimburse your health insurance company from that settlement for claims paid by the health insurance company. If you put your health and auto insurance companies in contact with each other regarding your injury claims, they can work together to sort out who is paying for which claims and also settle any subrogation issues.

If someone else was at fault for your injuries, whether in a traffic accident or in some other kind of accident, then you may hold that party responsible for your damages. Initially, you can deal with the other person’s insurance company regarding your claims, but when it comes to TBI, it pays to take no chances. Even with a so-called “mild” TBI, you can suffer serious and long-lasting effects.

You might accidentally agree with the insurance adjuster or other party regarding something that limits the amount you can recover for your damages in a way that favors the other side. To ensure you can recover a settlement (or a judgment at trial) sufficient to cover your medical costs and other damages, retain an attorney early in the process. With experience negotiating with insurance adjusters and in litigating claims, if necessary, an attorney is much less likely than you to agree to a deal that shortchanges your interests and needs.