Greenville Brain Injury Lawyers

Experiencing a brain injury is so traumatic and frightening for most people that it’s all they can do to get through each day afterward. While this is understandable, if you’ve suffered a brain injury because of someone else’s negligence, you deserve to find out if you are owed compensation.

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably suffered a brain injury. You’ve probably lost income because you’ve had to miss work. It may still be unclear whether you’ll be able to return to work at all, causing you stress over your finances. You are probably struggling to hang on to the life you knew before the accident, unsure what the future holds. You are probably looking for someone to answer your questions about a brain injury claim.

We are here to help. Our firm offers free legal advice. Call our Greenville brain injury lawyers today.

Don’t put it off because you are worried about having to pay up-front for the answers you need. Call us as soon as you can and schedule your free legal consultation.

The Elusive Nature of Brain Injuries

Traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, are often more complex than other injuries. They are typically difficult for doctors to pinpoint with exactness, as symptoms can come and go. Since the brain is the control center of the body, serious brain injury can lead to permanent impairment in any number of ways, from autonomic/involuntary activities, such as breathing on one’s own, to the ability to reason, track time, and regulate emotions. The complexities of quantifying brain injuries make it essential to have the help of an experienced brain injury lawyer to guide you through a claim.

How Brain Injuries Are Classified

Brain injuries typically fall into three loose categories:

• Mild TBI (including concussions)
• Moderate TBI
• Severe TBI

Because of the mutable nature of brain injury, these categories are more commonly considered on a continuum rather than cut-and-dry, rigidly defined “slots” within symptoms fall. These continuums span ranges, including mild-to-moderate and moderate-to-severe. The many potential symptoms of brain injury slide across these ranges in varying degrees, as you can see from the lists below.

Symptoms of a mild-to-moderate TBI include:

• Light sensitivity
• Confusion
• Mental fatigue
• Dizziness
• Headaches or migraines
• Sensitivity to noise
• Trouble concentrating
• Trouble with balance

In addition to the symptoms above, a moderate-to-severe TBI may also include:

• Vision problems
• Fatigue
• Seizures
• Vomiting
• Speech difficulties
• Paralysis
• Dizziness
• Physical impairment
• Cognitive challenges
• Trouble breathing
• Loss of taste
• Headaches or migraines
• Trouble sleeping
• Loss of smell
• Weakness in facial muscles
• Elevated blood pressure
• Lethargy
• Difficulty problem-solving
• Trouble with balance
• Difficulty swallowing

Location Matters

Brain injuries can affect people in many ways, depending on the location and nature of the injury. An injury to the right side of the head may impede the performance of tasks that a person was previously familiar with. It may also impact visual processing.

An injury to the left side of the head may affect comprehension, speech, and logical thought. While injury to the front of the head can cause issues with problem solving, impulse control, reasoning, and behavior regulation.

Seniors Are Particularly Vulnerable to Brain Injuries

Though anyone can suffer a brain injury, senior citizens who suffer brain injury are often particularly vulnerable. They are more vulnerable to dying as a result of a brain injury, and it’s not uncommon for them to need hospitalization after any type of brain injury has occurred. Falls are a common cause of brain injury in seniors. If you are or you know a senior who has had a fall, it’s important for them to get checked for a TBI if that fall included a blow to the head.

Seniors also face the complication of receiving a proper diagnosis for brain injuries, as these injuries share many symptoms with dementia. This potential for confusion brings up the problems of misdiagnosis and improper treatment, which can cause dangerous complications, permanent damage, and even death. If you have questions regarding the diagnosis or treatment of a brain injury, reach out to our Greenville brain injury lawyers for a free legal consultation to learn more.

Brain Injuries Caused by Medical Malpractice

Some brain injuries are caused by improper medical care. Three examples include:

• Surgical mistakes: Mistakes during brain surgery can result in tragic consequences for patients.
• Medication errors: Errors in medication can cause brain damage by interfering with the delivery of oxygen to the brain.
• Anesthesia errors: Tissue death can result from improper administration of anesthesia during a medical procedure.

Car Accidents Are Common Causes of Traumatic Brain Injury

The many ways a person can be seriously impacted during a car accident can easily lead to a brain injury. Because symptoms of such an injury may not be apparent to the victim for a few days, it’s extremely important to seek medical attention right after a crash so a brain injury can be identified and treated as quickly as possible.

Christian & Christian Law assist people with personal injury matters in the following locations: Anderson, Clemson, Easley, Fountain Inn, Greenville County, Greer, Mauldin, Simpsonville, Spartanburg, and Travelers Rest.

How Can Hiring a Lawyer Make a Difference to My Brain Injury Claim?

Hiring our Greenville brain injury lawyers will give you the best chance of recovering maximum compensation while at the same time affording you the ability to rest and recover —which is especially important with injuries to the brain.

If you’re hesitant to retain an attorney because you think handling your claim on your own will save you money, please read on. The majority of people who forego lawyers for this reason end up with many times less in compensation than those with skilled attorneys.

There are several ways that retaining our Greenville brain injury lawyers can help you to achieve maximum compensation in your claim. Most of them center around the ways having a lawyer protects your claim’s value:

• Our Greenville brain injury lawyers know how to investigate your accident to identify who is responsible for your damages. This may involve more than one party, depending on the facts of your claim, so it’s imperative to have the help of someone who knows how to identify everyone liable for your claim.
• Our lawyers have the skill to establish causation in your claim. Causation involves making the connections to show who caused the accident, the injuries you suffered as a result, and the damages to your life that arose from your injuries. Clearly connecting these facts is necessary to win your claim.
• Our attorneys know how to properly identify and add up your damages, to make sure you don’t leave anything out in your request for compensation. This process is complex and takes experience to ensure you ask for all that you deserve.
• Our brain injury lawyers will guide you through the process of considering settlement offers. Without a lawyer to help you accurately arrive at your claim’s value, it’s tough to know when an offer is fair or too low. Having the right attorney by your side takes the guessing out of evaluating your options.
• Our attorneys can take the stress and risk of communicating with the insurance company off your shoulders. This is important in making sure you don’t make a mistake when providing a statement that allows the insurance company to blame you for your injury. Your lawyer will know how to handle these interviews without damaging your claim.
• Hiring our Greenville brain injury lawyers makes it clear to the insurance company that you can’t be ignored or taken advantage of. They’ll be on notice that if they fail to offer an adequate settlement on a valid claim, your lawyer will sue them.
• Beyond the obvious threat of a lawsuit, if the insurance company ultimately refuses to settle in good faith, you’ll have the option of filing a lawsuit. This gives you the ability to reject low offers because you have a solid chance to win your claim in court if you must.

Taken together, it’s easy to see the many ways that your claim will be given the best chance to succeed with the help of our Greenville brain injury lawyers.

Avoid These Mistakes to Protect Your Brain Injury Claim

We’ve listed the ways your attorney can help protect the value of your claim. Read on to be aware of mistakes that you can avoid to help bring about the best possible result.

Skipping a Medical Exam

If you don’t get a medical exam right after the accident, you may put your health in grave danger. This is especially true when a brain injury may be involved. Always get checked to make sure you don’t have an internal injury you are unaware of. Doing so will allow you to receive rapid treatment and could save your life.

Getting checked by a doctor as soon after the accident as possible will also help protect the value of your brain injury claim. If you wait and later discover a problem, you’ll have a much more difficult time proving that the accident was the cause of the injury. You can bet the insurance company will do their best to suggest you couldn’t have been badly injured in the accident, since you didn’t seek immediate medical attention. If an injury was later discovered, they may claim it was the result of an unrelated incident you are now trying to “cash in” on.

These tactics are ugly and unfair, but not uncommon. Do everything you can to protect your claim by seeking medical treatment after the accident.

Not Following Your Treatment Plan

Too often, people tire of their treatment plans after being sent home from the hospital. They have a list of things to do to help with their recovery, but they get bored or busy and let it slide, thinking it won’t make a difference either way. They may forget to take medication on time, skip physical therapy sessions, or stop doing rehabilitation stretches.

What these people don’t realize is that their treatment plan will matter a lot. And it’s not so much what is included in the plan as much as your sticking to it to prevent damage to your claim.

Following your treatment plan can not only help you improve your strength and heal, but it can also support your claim as a clear indication that you are doing all you can to recover. And, getting caught not following your plan can put your claim in serious jeopardy.

This often takes the form of being caught on surveillance video by an insurance investigator doing something you should not be doing. For example, it may be that you should not expose yourself to sudden changes of direction after a brain injury. If an insurance investigator gets video of you on spinning rides at an amusement park, your claim is going to be at risk.

Take your treatment plan seriously to prevent the insurance company from using it as a tool to lower the value of your claim.

Agreeing to Give a Recorded Statement to the Insurance Company

Once the accident report is filed, you can expect a call from the liable party’s insurance company asking for your recorded statement about what happened. It’s a mistake to agree to speak to them, especially on a recorded line.

The insurance adjuster is not looking to help you with your claim. They are trying to save the insurance company money by recording you saying something they can use in their favor. Something that somehow makes you look partially or entirely responsible for the accident, or that implies you are lying or exaggerating your injuries. The person calling will be very good at asking you the same questions in numerous ways in hopes of confusing you. Any inconsistencies in your answers can give them the ammunition they need to suggest you are mistaken, at-fault, or being less than truthful about your claim.

Avoid these manipulations by delegating all communications about your claim to your Greenville brain injury lawyers. Our attorneys know all the insurance company tricks and will handle these conversations without leaving your claim vulnerable to devaluation.

Waiting Too Long to Find an Attorney

This mistake is common, especially with brain injury claims, which often leaves the victim feeling far from ready to take on an insurance company. Brain injuries are overwhelming. The benefit of hiring an attorney to handle your claim is that you don’t have to take it on. The sooner you retain a lawyer, the more time they will have to gather evidence to support your claim. Evidence that is likely to disappear over time.

Getting started quickly will also help your lawyer obtain witnesses while their memories of the accident are still fresh, and before they leave the area or change their contact information. Long before you need to concern yourself with the filing deadline for a claim, you must consider the importance of giving your lawyer the best chance to build you a strong case.

If you are understandably feeling overwhelmed by the thought of finding a lawyer while seriously injured, consider asking for help from a friend or relative. They can look online for attorneys who handle brain injury claims in your area and read their reviews and ratings. They can then bring you their recommendations, and together you can decide whom they can call to set up a free consultation.

This isn’t just a tough time for you. Your friends and family are likely devastated by what you’re going through and feeling helpless to assist. If you ask them for help in arranging free legal consultations, they’ll probably be relieved to have a way to help you through this difficult time.

Assuming All Lawyers Are the Same

It’s a mistake to assume that any lawyer will do when it comes to filing a brain injury claim. Just as you wouldn’t walk into a random surgeon’s office for specialized surgery without first making sure that surgeon is trained and skilled in the surgery, you have to make sure the attorney you hire has what you need to win your claim. Your best friend’s divorce attorney may be incredible, but unless she spends most of her time handling personal injury claims, she’s not the right attorney for your brain injury case.

Look for a personal injury trial attorney with a record of winning brain injury claims, both through negotiation and at trial. Your case may settle; most personal injury claims do. But if the insurance company refuses a reasonable settlement offer and the only way to get the compensation you deserve is through a lawsuit, you have to have a lawyer who can win in court. Our Greenville brain injury lawyers are successful trial lawyers who will take your claim to trial, if necessary, to bring you the best possible results.

South Carolina Brain Injury Client Story

We are using the following client story to help you know what to expect in a brain injury claim. Though we’ve changed the names and details to protect the privacy of our client, the information is helpful. Please read to the end, and then reach out to schedule your free legal consultation. We want to help you get maximum compensation for your claim.

On a chilly January night in Greenville not so long ago, Maureen Kempman dropped off her twelve-year-old daughter Lauren at the ice rink for a skating lesson and headed home to get some chores done. She was heading northeast on Brushy Creek Road when a driver heading in the opposite direction fell asleep at the wheel, sliding left and striking her car head-on.

Maureen sustained a moderate traumatic brain injury and two broken legs. She was initially so sensitive to light and sound, she had to be kept in a dark, quiet room most of the time. After over 30 minutes of light and sound exposure, she’d become disoriented, nauseous, dizzy, and frightened. Her normal coping mechanisms were unavailable to her during this time. She couldn’t just get up and go for a walk in nature or listen to music. She couldn’t journal. Even if she could have functioned with a light on (she could not), her vision was blurry and her brain couldn’t process information as easily as it used to.

There was no way Maureen could have prepared for the mental and emotional struggle that accompanied her physical healing. Her entire sense of self was thrown frighteningly off-kilter, leaving her feeling emotionally isolated inside herself as her brain dealt with the injuries. She was anxious and depressed.

Maureen’s husband Dan visited her daily throughout her time in the hospital, often bringing Lauren with him. They did the best they could to comfort her and keep her from feeling alone, but they could tell she still felt somehow locked in her own head.

Two weeks into a month-long hospital stay, the doctors told Maureen she would be transferred to a rehabilitation facility for another month before going home, if all else remained stable. The thought of a second month away from home after a month in the hospital was unbearable to Maureen. She cried for hours. Unable to console her, her husband and daughter became even more worried and desperate for help.

The next day, Dan suggested they speak with South Carolina brain injury lawyer Matt Christian of Christian & Christian Attorneys at Law. He explained that the firm is experienced in handling claims like Maureen’s, and it might help his wife to feel as though she were regaining some control of her life to get some answers about pursuing compensation from the driver who injured her. To his relief, Maureen agreed to let him arrange a free legal consultation. Attorney Christian arrived a few days later.

Maureen and Dan agreed that he would ask the questions, so she could try to relax and process the information. Dan would also take notes since Maureen was still unable to focus or write well enough to do so herself.

How much does it cost to hire an attorney for my brain injury claim?

“The first thing we need to know is how much it would cost to hire your firm,” Dan said, once Attorney Christian was settled.

“Of course,” said Attorney Christian with a smile. “We use a contingency-fee model, so there are no up-front costs. We front all expenses for your claim, from beginning to end, and when it’s done, you only pay us if we successfully resolve your case. This model allows our clients to move forward right away without a financial burden.”

Maureen looked at Dan, and he nodded back at her. “That’s good,” he confirmed, making a note. She nodded.

How much is my brain injury claim worth?

“What is my wife’s claim worth?” Dan asked, reading their next question.

“That’s a question we take time and care in answering,” said Attorney Christian, “because a claim value off the top of my head with nothing to base it on is not going to do you any good.

“We arrive at your claim’s value by first conducting a thorough investigation into your accident. We look at what happened, make sure we’ve got all at-fault parties identified, and collect as much evidence as possible to prove the negligence of the person who hit you.

“The second part of arriving at your claim’s value will involve you, Maureen, reaching what is called ‘maximum medical improvement,’ or MMI. This means you need to make as full a recovery as is possible,” said Attorney Christian. “We’ll be in touch with your doctors, and they will let us know when they think you’re there. It won’t be until they’re sure you don’t need any additional surgeries and they know how your future health will be impacted by your injuries.

“When you get to this point, we’ll know your damages — all the ways your life has been negatively impacted by your injuries. When we know these, we’ll put the facts from your investigation together with your damages and come up with a value for your claim.

“In the meantime, your job, Maureen, is to get better. Don’t worry about your claim. Rest, do your rehabilitation therapy, and channel your energy into recovery.”

How long will my brain injury claim take?

“That sounds realistic,” said Dan, making more notes. Maureen looked like she was lost in thought, but she nodded. “How long should we expect a claim to take?” Dan asked.

“The first hurtle in your timeline is how long it will take you to reach maximum medical improvement,” said Christian. “We’ll need to go as slow as you must to make steady, lasting improvement. As you by now know with a brain injury, this can’t be rushed, and recovery can take time. When you reach MMI, we’ll arrive at that claim value and send a demand letter to the other driver’s insurance company. At that point, the length of time it takes to wrap up your claim will depend on them.

“If they agree to our request for compensation, we’ll be able to close your case quickly at that point. If they refuse to work out a fair and reasonable settlement however, we’ll file a lawsuit and take them to court,” Christian said.

“Even though a trial would extend the timeline of your claim, I urge you to make sure whomever you decide to retain be a trial attorney. That way, if you’re left with no other option but to sue, you’ll have someone on your side who can bring you the justice you deserve. Our firm has a successful track record winning brain injury claims, both at the negotiating table and in court. If you decide to go with our firm, we’ll fight for your right to be made whole, all the way to a jury, if need be,” Attorney Christian said.

Maureen and Dan thanked Attorney Christian and promised to get back to him. They spent another two days discussing a possible claim, and Maureen decided she needed to move forward. They retained Christian and Cristian, and Attorney Matt Christian won Maureen’s case in court. The couple was shocked by the amount the jury awarded her.

Call Our Greenville Brain Injury Lawyers Today

We hope you’ve gained valuable insight from the information on this page. Since no two brain injury claims are the same, we encourage you to call our Greenville brain injury lawyers and schedule a free legal consultation as soon as possible. You don’t have to take on your claim by yourself. Let us help you get your life back by taking care of your case so you can focus on healing.