How Catastrophic Accidents Affect Victims’ Lives

• January 15, 2018
• Car Accidents
• Personal Injury Law

­­After an Asheville catastrophic car accident, you may feel that for every question your doctors answer, several new ones arise. How do you pay medical bills after a catastrophic injury? How do you get medical care if you can’t afford it? How will your family be affected after your catastrophic accident?

In this article, the second in our personal injury blog series on catastrophic car accident injuries, we’ll talk about the long-term effects of catastrophic injuries on victims’ lives. Important issues in catastrophic accidents include the need for in-home care services, life care planning, and other services to help you adjust and begin building a new life after your accident.

Getting medical care for car accident disabilities

The term “catastrophic injury” refers to injuries that leave victims unable to resume their normal lives. These injuries result in permanent disabilities that prevent you from returning to work after your accident, impacting your ability to care for yourself or your family. Accident victims’ quality of life can be improved drastically with the right treatment.

Ongoing medical care is typically necessary for people who suffered spinal injuries, loss of limbs, traumatic brain injuries that affect mental or emotional function, or other catastrophic injuries in a car accident. Before you were released from the hospital, your medical team probably referred you to a physical or occupational therapist, a home care nursing company, or another medical provider. Ongoing therapy from in-home providers may help you:

• regain muscle strength and function
• adjust to a new prosthetic device
• regain the use of a limb after temporary paralysis or nerve damage

Even if you have health insurance, the cost of catastrophic injury care often exceeds what insurance covers and may leave you wondering how you can pay for this care. Medical debt accumulates quickly in any car accident case but for disabled car accident victims in particular.

Life care planning after catastrophic car accident

Life care planning is an important tool in estimating the expected costs associated with your injuries. Experts in life care planning are often nurses or other experienced health care professionals who can assess your current needs and can anticipate future needs you might have. They work with patients and their families to create a life care plan, which details what treatment you should seek now and in the future, along with treatment goals you and your medical team would like to meet.

Consulting with a life care planning expert is an important step in working toward a settlement or during a lawsuit following a catastrophic car accident. These experts provide important information to you as a car accident victim, to your attorney, and to the at-fault insurance company. Working with life care planners and other experts helps you to seek an appropriate amount in damages and can substantiate your claim of profound disability.

Life after catastrophic car accidents

Medical care is not the only type of service you will need after your car accident. Transitioning to life after catastrophic injuries often involve working with:

• therapists who can help you work through post-traumatic stress, depression, and other mental health issues you may experience after your accident
• vocational counselors who can connect you to job training and opportunities, if you are unable to return to the job you held before your accident
• prosthetics specialists who can fit you for an artificial limb and help you adjust to using it

While there are often community resources to help people who need these services, you and your family may have to absorb much of the cost.

Consult an Asheville personal injury attorney after a catastrophic car accident

Getting help paying for your medical and other expenses from your complex injuries can be a years-long process. Typical personal injury cases are resolved after the injured person has finished treatment; however, people with catastrophic injuries may never complete their treatment. Life care planners and other experts can step in when this is the case, but most injured people cannot afford these experts’ fees on their own.

A personal injury attorney can connect you with expert witnesses to help you build your case, which may help you reach a settlement without needing to file a lawsuit. In addition to substantiating your claim with the at-fault insurance company, experts may be able to help you identify ways to improve your quality of life. Your attorney can absorb the cost up front, allowing you access to services you need for your case.
Contact our Asheville personal injury firm today to schedule a consultation with our legal team, where we will assess your case and make a plan, giving you some peace of mind and the ability to focus on rebuilding your life after your catastrophic accident.