People involved in Virginia car crashes can suffer many different types of injuries. They could break bones or incur a spinal cord injury that will have immediate effects on their mobility. It is also easier than people realize for collisions to cause traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) that can lead to long-lasting, potentially debilitating symptoms.
Those who end up with brain injuries after a car crash may be more likely than those with other, less serious injuries to take an at-fault party to civil court. Why is litigation so often the response to a car crash that results in a brain injury in Virginia?
Brain injuries can lead to huge medical costs
A moderate to severe brain injury could potentially require hospitalization and emergency surgery, followed by many weeks of rehabilitative medical support. Depending on the kind of symptoms that someone develops in the medical treatment they require, a brain injury could require a medical treatment that costs anywhere from $85,000 to more than $3 million dollars over the course of someone’s life. Even with Virginia in the midst of a strategic, staggered increase in liability insurance requirements for drivers, the average motorist won’t have nearly enough coverage for someone with major crash injuries.
Brain injuries can affect employment as well
Regardless of whether someone works in a warehouse or an office, a TBI might affect their job performance. The symptoms possible when someone hurts their brain can include changes in balance and motor function, memory issues and even personality changes. Those symptoms can make some people unable to continue the same career they once enjoyed or can at least make any additional advancement in one’s chosen career highly unlikely. The more someone earned prior to their injury and the bigger the impact of their symptoms on their job performance, the greater the long-term economic impact their injury may have because of lost wages and earning potential.
The combination of diminished earnings and major medical expenses often force those with brain injuries caused by a crash to consider every option for paying their expenses afterward. Learning more about the long-term repercussions of a recent injury caused by a collision may help people take the right steps to cover their expenses and minimize the financial hardship they and their loved ones may experience as a result of another’s conduct.