Whiplash in a Maryland car accident is among the most common injuries you will suffer. Here, we will discuss whiplash, its common causes, and how it can affect the value of your case. In almost every case we handle, whiplash tends to play some role regardless of the type of car accident. It is most common in cases where the car accident victim is either rear-ended or in a head-on collision. But unfortunately, even in side-impact accidents or pedestrian accidents, whiplash can be a common injury. A whiplash injury might not set in on the first day of the accident. Sometimes, soreness kicks in a few days later. Thus, it is imperative to wait to give statements to insurance companies. The most important thing to do is consult a Maryland car accident attorney. Our attorneys will advise you on how to handle requests from insurance providers.
Whiplash is an injury few understand. Immediately following the accident, victims may not recognize they are hurt. Beyond soreness taking sometimes days to set in, your adrenaline may restrict your ability to notice your pain. Some consider whiplash to be more of an annoyance. Something that requires months of physical therapy just for gradual improvement. However, it is essential to evaluate long-term effects. You may not be concerned with back injuries if you are a younger car accident victim. However, your back is susceptible to long-term pain and discomfort as you age. This is something you want to mitigate as much as possible. This starts with immediate treatment by a medical provider.
Our Maryland car accident attorneys will ensure you get the necessary medical treatment. While it is undoubtedly inconvenient, the defendant owes you compensation. Moreover, it is prudent to receive a consultation from a doctor for a whiplash injury.
Whiplash occurs in many car accidents in Maryland. Whiplash is a neck injury that occurs when your head is suddenly jerked back and forth. This mimics the action of a whip. As much of your body is restrained by your seatbelt in a car accident, your head is possibly the only thing that is free to be thrown in an accident, being held to your body only by your neck. This is a considerable amount of strain to be placed on your neck. This can cause severe and long-term strain and soreness. Symptoms of whiplash can include a wide range of symptoms. Most commonly, this includes neck pain and stiffness. Additionally, you may suffer from headaches, dizziness, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating or remembering. Many of these symptoms mirror head injuries like concussions. That is because concussive symptoms are common symptoms of whiplash.
After all, it can affect the brain. In more severe cases, you may suffer nerve damage that presents as a tingling sensation down the arms. Many think these brain injuries only occur in sports like football. But if you consider that the motion that injures a player in football is eerily similar to the motion of your head in a car accident, only a car accident has far more force; you begin to understand the dire consequences of whiplash in a Maryland car accident.
Even if we prove that the defendant acted negligently in proximately causing your accident by breaching a duty owed, we still must establish damages. For whiplash in a Maryland car accident, we utilize your medical records. This is one reason why seeking prompt medical attention is crucial. If you go to a doctor two weeks after your injury, we will not have complete records. Moreover, a jury may consider that your injuries were not as severe as you claim if you could bear your pain for that long without seeing a doctor. While extenuating circumstances may exist, they are a minority of the time and should not be relied on. Medical records detailing the diagnosis, treatment plan, and prescribed medications showing soft tissue damage or other injuries are essential evidence.
We use evidence to establish the existence of an injury, which is critical for injuries such as whiplash, where an X-ray or MRI may not show any damage.
In some cases, establishing whiplash in a Maryland car accident case may require expert testimony. This is necessary more so to prove that you cannot work because of your whiplash injury. For example, we may need an expert to testify that you can no longer earn the same amount as before the injury because of your symptoms. This represents a lack of future earning capacity causally related to your injury and is compensable. However, an expert witness at trial is required to establish it by a preponderance of the evidence.
If you treat your whiplash injury for several months, a jury is more likely to believe you were hurt. Meanwhile, if you are only treated for two weeks but claim that your pain lasted for three months, most juries are not going to believe your testimony. We must substantiate any claim we make with some form of evidence.
Additionally, whiplash injuries can affect your daily life. We want to know all the ways these injuries affect you. While we have a list of questions we can ask you to help jog your memory about what has been a challenge since your injury, it may also benefit you to keep a log. Detailing your symptoms, pain levels, and limitations can provide valuable contemporary evidence of the injury’s impact over time. It will also be more compelling to a jury to do this during your treatment as the pain is happening than recalling how much pain you were in after the fact.
Preventing whiplash in a Maryland car accident is often unavoidable. It would be best to avoid the accident to give yourself the best chance of preventing the injury. However, we will still provide actionable tips and tricks to prevent whiplash in car accidents. Proper seat position and headrest adjustment can increase your odds of preventing a whiplash injury in a car accident. Doing so limits the range of motion in which your head can act as a whip. This may decrease the amount of strain you feel on your neck. Moreover, wearing a seatbelt is a simple yet crucial step in protecting yourself against a whiplash injury. While you may still suffer whiplash while wearing a seatbelt, it likely will not be nearly as bad as it would have been had you not worn a seatbelt at all. You are also protected from other common injuries in a car accident.
Our attorneys handle whiplash in a Maryland car accident regularly. Whiplash is among the most common types of injuries we see as car accident lawyers in Maryland. If you suffer a whiplash injury and are seeking compensation, call our office today to discuss your options. Call us at (202) 331-7227. Our consultations are always free.
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