5 Things You Should do After a Personal Injury

5 Things You Should do After a Personal Injury

5 Things You Should do After a Personal Injury

An accident that results in an injury can be devastating. Such an injury can lead to chronic pain, hospitalization and even permanent disability.

The financial toll it can take on a person and their family can also be quite significant. In certain cases, such an injury may even end up ruining your ability to make a steady income.

It’s even worse when you know that another party’s actions or lack of action caused the unfortunate turn of events that lead to your accident. In that case, you may want to seek justice and compensation through a personal injury lawsuit.

However, if you don’t take the right actions after such an accident, succeeding in a lawsuit will be much more difficult. With that in mind, below are five things you should do after a personal injury.

1. Get Medical Treatment

One thing you should never do after an injury is simply go home and try to forget about it. That would be a tremendous mistake. The severity of your injuries may not be immediately apparent to you.

Serious internal injuries may not have immediately noticeable external symptoms. In certain cases, internal injuries can be deadly. You always want to play it safe when it comes to your health.

A second reason to receive medical treatment after a personal injury is that doing so can help your legal case a great deal. The fact that you went to a hospital or care clinic immediately after the accident proves that you were seriously harmed.

Your hospital stay or doctor’s visit will also produce medical records that will be important evidence used to prove your case in court.

2. Obtain and Retain Evidence

As was mentioned, medical records are important evidence that must be retained and preserved to prove your case in court.

Your doctor may even include specific details of how the injury occurred that you can use to make your argument.

However, you need to also obtain and retain other kinds of evidence as well. For example, a police report created by a responding officer would also be excellent evidence to have.

You should also take out your phone immediately following the accident. Start taking photos and even video of the scene of the accident as well as your physical injuries.

If you can, for example, create video evidence that shows a sidewalk was slick with ice when you slipped and fell. That will certainly go a long way towards proving your case in front of a jury.

3. Contact an Attorney

Personal injury cases are not easy to win. However, with the proper legal help, you can greatly improve your chances of either winning damages in court or obtaining a sizable settlement from the other party.

Contact a personal injury lawyer in Birmingham AL or your particular locale right away. An experienced personal injury lawyer will be able to guide you through the process and help build your case.

Without that legal expertise, you could make significant mistakes that could hamper your ability to obtain the compensation you deserve. You need that kind of expertise as quickly as possible.

4. Obtain Witness Testimony

Another important kind of evidence that can help you win a personal injury lawsuit is witness testimony. Try to obtain witness statements from everyone you can immediately following the accident.

Obtain all the names, phone numbers and other contact information of these witnesses. Forward all this information to your lawyer.

Your lawyer can then take further steps such as obtaining signed affidavits, a legal term for sworn statements. In certain cases, a witness may take part in a deposition or give live testimony in court.

Having witnesses that confirm your version of events can certainly sway a case to your side especially if the defendant does not have witnesses that can testify to the opposite.

5. Create a Timeline and Journal

Another thing you should do immediately after a personal injury is create a timeline of events. This should include what happened before the accident, what happened during the accident and what happened afterwards.

Try to be as specific as you can regarding the date and time of events and include as many specific details you can recall.

As time passes, things become harder to remember. Writing it all down immediately can help to preserve the record that you will need to reproduce for your personal injury lawsuit.

Also start a journal regarding your struggles with your injury. Journal entries should detail things like the pain you feel, any other symptoms of the injury, the medical treatment you receive, any financial problems you have and other hardships you experience.

This is important evidence that can show how much harm has been done to you as a result of the injury and can be used to help estimate damages.

Conclusion

A personal injury can be shocking and extremely painful to live through. It can feel even worse when another party was at fault for your injury. Still, you must try to keep a clear head after experiencing such an accident. The steps you take next can help to determine whether or not you can obtain the compensation you deserve through a personal injury lawsuit.

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