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The very nature of a rear-end impact suggests the way that a human might get tossed around in the hit vehicle. Yet a personal injury lawyer must consider all that could take place in a body over time, once it has felt such an impactful force.
Minor injuries
Soft tissue injuries cause swelling and bruising. They heal rather quickly.
More serious injuries
A cervical acceleration, followed by a deceleration can cause whiplash. It can also cause torn spinal ligaments, tendons or muscles. If a small child does not have the right sort of seat, it might get tossed about; it could hit its head on some part of the vehicle.
What can happen if a serious condition does not get treated?
If someone with torn spinal ligaments, tendons or muscles does not receive the proper amount of physical therapy, that same patient could develop post-traumatic osteoarthritis. Sometimes, a patient experiences further problem, such as degeneration of the bone.
A hit on the head can lead to development of a traumatic brain injury. If that goes untreated, the patient could experience periods of dizziness. In an advanced stage, the same patient might suffer with seizures.
Damage to the head could trigger development of a more serious condition, if the affected child happened to have an ear or nose infection at the time of the collision. It is possible that the injured child could develop hydrocephalus, a swelling of the ventricles in the brain. That can only be corrected by implantation of a ventricular shunt.
How those possibilities relate to the concept of MMI?
MMI stands for maximum medical improvement. Personal Injury Lawyers in Hamilton tell their clients not to settle with the insurance company until each inured victim has reached a state of MMI. Obviously, failure to treat a serious injury can lengthen the time that it takes to attain that state of MMI.
That is why personal injury lawyers caution their clients against accepting one of the first offers made by an insurance company. Once a victim agrees to a settlement, an insurer cannot be held liable for any further medical complications, even those that relate to an accident-caused injury.
Without a lawyer for support, a claimant might find it hard to convince an insurance company that he or she has good reason for delaying the act of agreeing to a settlement. A lawyer’s experience helps with convincing an insurance company that an accident victim has good reason for suspecting that there might be further complications.
An attorney can work with the victim’s doctor. An injury lawyer can also seek out medical experts that can explain why the victim has reason to suspect further complications. An expert’s opinion can strengthen the lawyer’s argument.