Brain Injury Lawyers in Myrtle Beach
A brain injury can be catastrophic, affecting people emotionally, physically, and mentally. Although eight out of 10 brain injury victims recover, the remaining 20 percent do not. Even for those who do eventually improve, the path to recovery is arduous and slow. Treatment is often expensive and time-consuming, changing the victim's life in many ways.
In the end, a brain injury can interfere with your finances, your career, your relationships, and your ability to function socially. Read on to learn more about how Morris Law Accident Injury Lawyers and our Myrtle Beach brain injury lawyers can help you recover the compensation you deserve.
Our firm offers compassionate and comprehensive advice to those who have suffered a brain injury due to an auto accident caused by a negligent party. Contact Morris Law Accident Injury Lawyers today for your free case review. If you cannot come to the office, we are happy to review your case online, by phone, or come to you.
Your Myrtle Beach Brain Injury Case Deserves Our Full Commitment
As your legal representation, our brain injury lawyers serving Myrtle Beach will put in the work to ensure your case is handled properly from the start. We manage all the legwork, so you never have to stress over the progression of your case.
Some of the responsibilities we take on to move your case forward include:
- Investigating the cause of your brain injury
- Gathering evidence of the at-fault party's negligence
- Identifying the liable parties in your claim
- Managing all communications related to your case, from insurance companies to medical professionals to witnesses
- Negotiating a fair settlement for your brain injury and related injuries
- Filing a lawsuit against the liable party if they refuse to compensate you fairly
- Preparing your case for trial
- Arguing the merits of your case before a judge and jury
- Keeping you in the loop as your case progresses
At Morris Law Accident Injury Lawyers, we are dedicated to client service. For us, that means committing the time, attention, and resources that your Myrtle Beach brain injury case deserves. Having secured millions of dollars for injury victims like you, we understand the difficult journey that lies ahead for those suffering from catastrophic injuries. We want to do everything we can to give you your life back.
Compensation for a Myrtle Beach Brain Injury Claim
For many brain injury patients, recovery can be prolonged. The cost of your medical care should be fairly compensated, no matter how long treatment is needed. Our financial advisors help us structure compensation to ensure that you do not find yourself paying for medical costs out of pocket.
Often, the insurance company will offer a quick resolution that is far less than the amount needed to cover the extent of medical costs. The Myrtle Beach traumatic brain injury attorneys at Morris Law Accident Injury Lawyers are well-attuned to this maneuver and will fight to make sure the at-fault party is held responsible for every dollar they owe.
A brain injury often gives rise to a variety of unforeseen expenses, many of which may be outside your financial means. The stress of worrying about how you will afford necessary treatment, pay your bills, or cover additional expenses is certain to exacerbate the damage already done to a mind suffering from injury. Our Myrtle Beach personal injury attorneys make it their priority to fight for your maximum financial recovery.
Types of Recoverable Damages in a Brain Injury Case
Under South Carolina law, you are entitled to recover both economic and non-economic damages from the negligent party. Economic damages cover your financial losses, while non-economic damages compensate you for various levels of pain and suffering. Your physical, psychological, and emotional injuries are compensable under the law.
A brain injury lawyer at our firm can help you recover damages for:
Medical Expenses
A brain injury is often a serious and life-threatening condition. The treatment required to restore your health and fight for your life may cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Medical expenses can take a toll on your bank account or put you in debt, including:
- Emergency surgical procedures
- Long hospital stays
- Brain scans
- Lab tests
- Prescription medications
- Assistive devices
- Mobility equipment
- Ongoing care from physicians or specialists
You can recover costs like these in a personal injury claim. Our attorneys also take into account any future medical expenses you may have to pay. Recovering from a brain injury is a long-term process that may require treatment for years to come.
Physical Therapy
Your healing journey may require physical rehabilitation. Because TBIs may result in muscle weakness, reduced mobility, spastic movements, loss of balance, or loss of coordination, physical therapy can help restore your physical capacity to function.
If you suffered other injuries due to the accident or event that led to the TBI, you might also benefit from physical therapy. For example, a person injured in a sports accident or car crash may also have a neck injury, spinal injury, or dislocated joints that necessitate rehabilitative care.
Occupational Therapy
Brain injury often results in some form of cognitive impairment. Damaged cognition can manifest as difficulty remembering things, learning new things, or concentrating. Faced with these challenges, it may be hard to perform your daily activities.
Other physical injuries can compound the issue, requiring you to relearn how to complete basic tasks. If you require occupational therapy, our brain injury attorneys serving Myrtle Beach, South Carolina can help you recover this expense.
Lost Income and Disability
Your brain injury may put you out of commission indefinitely, leaving you with no stable income. The money you lose while you are unable to work is recoverable in a personal injury claim. When you do reach your maximum improvement, you may discover that you are unable to work at the level you used to worse, you may be unable to work at all. Your lost earning potential can be added to your claim for compensation.
Physical Pain and Suffering
Your pain and suffering damages are a significant factor in your compensation for a brain injury. As the center of your nervous system, a damaged brain affects nearly every other part of your body. You might be physically suffering from continual headaches, dizzy spells, seizures, or vomiting.
You might have also lost a portion of your brain's functionality, leaving you unable to remember things, process information quickly, or focus. Many brain injury survivors also suffer nerve damage and mobility impairments. The grievous and varied nature of traumatic brain injuries may allow for high-value compensation claims.
Mental Pain and Suffering
The effects of a brain injury on your mind are multi-faceted. Your injury not only causes direct damage to the brain, but the cognitive disruptions and physical challenges you face can leave you battling mental illness and emotional struggles. Depression, loneliness, isolation, shame, nightmares, PTSD, anxiety, and a wealth of other psychological conditions are compensable in a brain injury claim.
Your Diminished Quality of Life Strongly Affects Your Brain Injury Compensation
The physical, emotional, and financial hardships that your brain injury imposes can ultimately result in a much lower quality of life. The inability to enjoy the activities you once loved or perform routine tasks without assistance changes your life in a way that medical bills never could. For this reason, your monetary compensation must pay for impacts on your quality of life.
When Brain Injury Causes Your Loved One's Wrongful Death
The brain injury lawyers at our firm can also assist if you lose a loved one due to a TBI. We are deeply sorry for your loss, and we are committed to helping families like yours recover compensation to ease their stress and financial burdens as they grieve.
In a wrongful death lawsuit, you may recover:
- Funeral, burial, or cremation expenses
- End-of-life medical costs
- Lost financial support
- Loss of consortium, companionship, parental guidance, or protection
- Loss of services provided by the decedent
- Emotional distress
Statute of Limitations for Traumatic Brain Injury Cases in South Carolina
The deadline for filing a personal injury lawsuit in South Carolina is generally three years after the injury is discovered or should have been discovered. This gives us a limited amount of time to investigate your case, gather supporting evidence of your damages, and broach negotiations with the insurance company or defendant.
Therefore, contacting a Myrtle Beach catastrophic injury lawyer as soon as possible is in your best interest. You may have less time than you think to file your claim in court.
What Is a Brain Injury?
A brain injury is most frequently caused by a blow to the head. The impact can result in a skull fracture or cause a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Normally, the skull cradles and protects the brain. When an impact causes the brain tissue to move within the sharp interior of the skull, it can become bruised and swollen with internal or external bleeding. Brain injuries that occur due to sustaining damage inside the skull are known as closed-head injuries.
Initially, the symptoms of closed brain injury may be minor, consisting of headache, nausea, or a brief loss of consciousness. As time goes by, the tissues continue to swell and put increasing pressure on the brain, potentially causing life-threatening issues. People often pass off head injuries as minor, thinking that if they don't lose consciousness, they'll be fine. A closed brain injury can go unnoticed or misread for days or weeks.
TBIs can also occur when an object strikes the brain, such as a bullet or knife. These injuries are called penetrating or open injuries. Due to the violent nature of penetrating injuries, they require immediate medical attention and could kill the victim instantly. However, the impaling of the brain with a foreign object is visually alarming, so the chances that the victim will not notice or take medical action are unlikely.
A Myrtle Beach Brain Injury Attorney Can Help Recover Damages for Many Types of Cases
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that nearly 223,000 people with brain injuries are admitted to the hospital each year. A brain injury is most commonly caused by:
Falls
Falls are the number-one cause of traumatic brain injury in people ages 65 and up. Falls also lead to almost half of all TBI-related hospitalizations. Slip and falls, trip and falls, disorientation, loss of balance and coordination due to age, workplace accidents, and falls from heights are just some of the causes of fall-related brain injuries. Many of these injuries are preventable with the right precautions and care.
Motor Vehicle Accidents
Car accidents are the second major cause of brain injury. Currently, motor vehicle accidents are responsible for nearly 20 percent of all TBI-related deaths. The rate of TBI deaths resulting from traffic accidents is highest for people ages 15-24. In addition to homicide, car accidents are the most common mode of injury for children up to age 17 who suffer TBI-related deaths.
Violence/Assaults
After falls and traffic collisions, assaults are the third most common cause of brain injury. Assaults that can lead to brain injury include gunshot wounds, child abuse, domestic violence, and shaken baby syndrome. TBIs that result from physical assault are associated with higher risks of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and lower quality of life outcomes than those harmed by falls or car accidents
Sports and Recreation
Those who routinely play high-impact or extreme sports are at an increased risk of brain injury. Sports injuries are especially prevalent in young people. According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, an estimated 10 percent of all traumatic brain injuries are caused by sports and recreational activities. Among young children and teens, this figure jumps to 21 percent. Boating is one recreational activity that frequently results in TBI.
Combat and Training
Military servicemen and women sometimes experience brain injury while in combat or during training. Explosions pose a significant risk during on-duty service.
One of the most tragic realities of brain injuries is that they are often preventable. Regardless of the circumstances, if the negligent or careless acts of another person led to your harm, a Myrtle Beach brain injury lawyer from our firm can help you recover the financial compensation you need to rebuild your life.
Categories of Brain Injury
Brain injuries can be categorized according to their seriousness, as shown below:
- Mild severity: This mild form of brain injury can result in momentary loss of consciousness with recovery. The victim may be disoriented, have memory loss, or be confused.
- Moderate severity: The injured person may appear lethargic or sleepy. They may experience a period of unconsciousness lasting 20 minutes to six hours. However, they are arousable.
- High severity: The injured person may be unconscious for more than six hours and not arousable, even with direct stimulation.
Types of Brain Injury
The multiple types of brain injury include:
- Concussion: Concussion is the mildest form of brain injury. It occurs when the brain hits the interior surface of the skull after a blow to the head or a swift back-and-forth motion. Symptoms can range from mild ones that resolve with rest within several weeks to more severe ones that affect memory or cognitive ability for years.
- Subdural hematoma: Several membrane layers surround and protect the brain. The first two from the outside are the dura and arachnoid membranes. When blood vessels are damaged by a brain injury, blood can accumulate between the dura and the arachnoid layers is called a subdural hematoma.
People on blood thinners or older individuals can experience a larger hematoma. Within days to weeks, they may exhibit headaches, slurred speech, and vomiting. When the amount of blood and pressure in the brain is greater, surgical intervention may be needed to relieve the pressure. Smaller bleeds often reabsorb on their own. However, the patient must be closely monitored.
- Subarachnoid hematoma: In this case, the blood accumulates below the arachnoid layer and puts pressure on the brain. A CT scan or MRI can identify the hematoma. Surgical intervention to drain the blood is required.
- Coup-contrecoup brain injury: When the initial blow bruises the brain at the area of impact, this is called a coup injury. Sometimes the impact is strong enough to injure the brain on the opposite side as well, which is called a coup-contrecoup injury. With both injuries, the brain is frequently bruised and bleeding. In fact, the injury to the far side of the brain may cause more serious problems.
- Diffuse axonal injury: The axons of the brain connect one nerve cell to another. When axons are shredded or torn and the transmission between brain cells is disrupted, brain function can be damaged. Diffuse axonal injury is one of the most serious injuries to the brain.
Brain injury can range in severity and take weeks, months, or years to heal-if at all. Injuries that appear to get better may suddenly take a turn for the worse. The precarious nature of brain injury necessitates that you have adequate financial resources to get proper treatment and take care of yourself and your family.
Our brain injury lawyers in Myrtle Beach are dedicated to fighting for the money you need to make this a reality. If you've suffered a brain injury due to no fault of your own, you should not have to bear the financial burden. Turn to Morris Law Accident Injury Lawyers for help, and we'll work to hold the at-fault party responsible.
Your Brain Injury Symptoms Can Affect Your Financial Recovery
Brain injuries are unique among catastrophic injuries because they involve damage to your body's control system. While some symptoms are physical, many are cognitive disruptions that can be difficult to overcome.
Some symptoms may occur immediately, while others present themselves over time. In either case, brain injury symptoms can disrupt your normal activities and significantly reduce your quality of life.
Common brain injury symptoms include:
- Inability to concentrate
- Headache
- Balance problems
- Disorientation
- Amnesia
- Visual difficulties
- Dizziness
- Sleep disturbances
- Depression
- Memory loss
- Extreme mood changes
- Unusual fatigue
- Confusion
- Vomiting
- Nausea
- Irritability
- Seizures
- Various levels of consciousness, usually seen with diffuse injuries
The symptoms you experience, along with their severity, are important factors we consider when evaluating your losses caused by traumatic brain injury and calculating your damages for pain and suffering. Your Myrtle Beach brain injury attorney will take the time to get to know you and how this catastrophic injury has impacted your life. We also work with experts in the medical field who can provide insight into your condition.
Treatment for Brain Injury
Treatment for brain injury depends on the cause as well as the symptoms the victim is experiencing. Some treatments are targeted specifically to reduce pain and discomfort. Others are intended to deal with the symptoms head-on.
Examples of brain injury treatments include:
- Sedatives and pain medications to relieve pain and prevent further damage
- IV hypertonic saline that draws the fluid from the brain to treat brain edema (swelling)
- Seizure medications to prevent seizures
- Antibiotics used to prevent and treat infections before they progress
- Surgery is often needed to drain a hematoma before pressure on the brain causes significant damage
- Surgery can also help repair severed blood vessels or remove a blood clot
If a significant amount of pressure builds up and causes life-threatening swelling in the brain, doctors may need to perform a craniectomy. This surgery involves removing a portion of the skull and freezing it. Once the swelling has disappeared, the bone is replaced. Recovery is slow and often requires extensive rehabilitation.
Let
The attorneys and staff at Morris Law Accident Injury Lawyers are always here when you need us. If you or a member of your family suffered a brain injury, contact us today for your free case review. If you cannot come to us, we will find a way to come to you.
After a brain injury, both the plaintiff and their family should put their energies into healing. Let us take care of the rest. Call today at (843) 232-0944 or contact us for your free case evaluation from our Myrtle Beach brain injury lawyers.
