Wasn't Hurt, But Now I Feel Horrible. Now What?

When you’re hurt in an accident, it’s important to get the assistance of someone who can help. While most injuries will happen quickly and distinctly, allowing you to document them and respond accordingly, others will happen over time. Many people have walked away from car accidents feeling fine, only to find that their shoulder doesn’t work the next week. When this happens, you need a plan. Here are distinct steps on how to handle this process in a way that makes sense.

Go see a doctor

If you start to feel bad in the wake of an accident, any good personal injury lawyer will tell you to go see a doctor. Injuries that come on many days after an accident can be some of the most serious, and you stand the possibility of allowing the condition to set in the longer you wait. This is especially true if you are facing a head or neck injury. These parts of the body are notoriously sensitive, and issues there can range from debilitating to deadly. Go see a doctor first and worry about your personal injury case second.

One of the upsides to seeing a doctor as soon as you can is the ability to pinpoint what caused your injury. In any personal injury case where negligence is at issue, one of the biggest arguments will be over damage and causation. Sure, you might have injuries, but who is responsible for those injuries? The defense may argue that the the defendant’s conduct was not the proximate cause of your injury or that some superseding cause was actually at play. The sooner you go to the doctor, the better your chances are of establishing the link between your accident and the pain you’re feeling.

Talk with your employer

You might think it’s a good idea to work through the pain, but this can be a major negative over the long run. Trying to work while hurt can exacerbate your injury while also causing you to suffer from lapses in job performance. In many cases, your employer is required to provide you with time off to deal with a legitimate injury. This is especially true if the injury happened while you were on the job. Trying to work through your injury can do more than just cause you pain and risk further injury. It can also complicate your case by suggesting that the injury you suffered was not very serious.

Document everything

Good personal injury and accident lawyers tell their clients that the best case is one with plenty of documentation. The lawyer’s job gets much harder if they have to try and chase own all of your little costs here and there. It’s significantly easier if you keep up with how much you spent on medical fees, on costs of getting to the hospital, and on medicine to deal with your pain. Keep a record of when you went, who you saw, and what they said to you. Keep a record also of any time you missed at work. When it comes time to ask the jury for a damage award, your lawyer will add up all the ways the injury cost you. Providing documentation makes this job much easier.

Call a good Los Angeles personal injury attorney as soon as you can

There is nothing easy about working a case that a plaintiff has already messed up through poor decisions or wrongful statements. Good lawyers can ensure that you don’t make any missteps and can advise you on the best way forward. Perhaps more importantly for you, a good lawyer can point you to resources that will help you deal with the pain, file for disability, or take other measures to ensure your financial solvency while you are out of work.

Calling the right lawyer will allow him to get to work finding the information needed to make your case. Discovery is best done in the weeks following an accident or the onset of an injury. The sooner a lawyer can get to work, the easier it will be to identify the parties responsible for your pain and put together a plan to hold those people responsible for the financial carnage you might have suffered.