Head injury: forgotten trauma

Virginia (VA) Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyers
Offices in VA Beach, Hampton & Elizabeth, NC  

As a Norfolk, Virginia (VA) attorney working on personal injury and wrongful death cases, I am most astonished that traumatic brain injury (TBI) is so common in the United States and how little attention seems to be paid to the people suffering from it. Every 23 seconds a traumatic brain injury occurs in the U.S. This means over a million people in our county each year suffer a head injury. Over 50,000 of the people with a head injury will die from the blow or jolt causing TBI.

Because many cases of traumatic brain injury can have long term or permanent effects on the person, there are over 5 million Americans dealing with the effects of this terrible medical condition. Part of the reason that traumatic brain injury is often forgotten in this country has to do with some of the difficulties in recognizing and diagnosing the condition. For example, if you ask a person after a automobile accident whether he lost consciousness, as is commonly done by the emergency services personnel, how is he suppose to know. If you are knocked unconsciousness, you don’t necessarily remember that unless someone tells you that they saw it or found you unconsciousness. Some people may not realize they have suffered a traumatic brain injury until someone close to them notices the physical, emotional, and mental changes after a motor vehicle crash. This form of closed head injury often is not obvious to the doctors in the emergency room because you can have a traumatic brain injury which does not appear immediately on a CT scan of your head.

It may seem hard for some to understand that you can have a traumatic brain injury without an open wound to the head. Just because the skin is not bruised or broken doesn’t mean that the brain inside the skull is undamaged. You can have traumatic brain injury just from the jolting back and forth motion commonly called whiplash in the context of a car wreck. What happens is that the soft brain tissue is ripped at a microscopic level from being thrown about within the hard, rough interior of the bony skull.

Brain injury victims are often referred to as the walking wounded. If you meet someone who has a brain injury you may not know that. Even if you know notice some other unusual behavior such as irritability or memory problems, you might attribute it to their personality or some other kind of non-physical problem. You may just think that they are just a difficult or unintelligent person. However, for those who knew the person before he suffered a brain injury, the after effects of the head trauma are clear.

All of these issues cause the people living with traumatic brain injury, and their medical condition to be misunderstood. As a result, the personal injury lawyer handling a case of moderate traumatic brain injury in an automobile accident case or slip and fall case has to overcome some of these misconceptions in convincing the jury that the injury is serious and real. The top personal injury lawyers in Virginia (VA) and in our country are able to answer some of these questions about traumatic brain injury, so that their clients get a fair shake with the insurance company and the courts. However, becoming knowledgeable about the medicine and facts about brain injury are necessary in order to do the best job for these clients who are often forgotten.

About the Editors: Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton personal injury law firm is based in Virginia (VA), near the NE North Carolina (NC) border and handles car,truck,railroad, and medical negligence cases and more. Our lawyers proudly edit the Virginia Beach Injuryboard, Norfolk Injuryboard, and Northeast North Carolina Injuryboard as a pro bono public information service. Lawyers licensed in: VA, NC, SC, WV, DC, KY.

How can you identify a top Virginia injury lawyer for your case? Look no further.

Our VA personal injury lawyers have been selected for many accolades.

Two of the attorneys with our Virginia Beach accident injury law firm, James Lewis and Rick Shapiro, have been named the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Two of our VA injury lawyers -- Lewis and Shapiro - have been named to Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury since 2010. In addition, Lewis and Shapiro have been selected for inclusion in the National Million Dollar Advocates Forum since 2009. 

Our VA accident injury law firm was the first in the commonwealth nvited to join Primerus, a select group of highly ethical and respected law firms. Rick Shapiro was named as one of the Top 100 Injury Lawyers in Virginia by the National Trial Lawyers Association.

In October, 2000 our law firm and co-counsel obtained what was then the largest verdict in Virginia's history for an injured person. Our brain damaged client received an initial award of $46 million that rose to $60 million with interest when the defendant abandoned an appeal and agreed to settle. 

Geographical Areas

Our personal injury lawyers handle personal injury cases throughout the eastern USA, and work closely with lawyers in other states on signficant injury cases.

In Virginia, this includes Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Hampton, Newport News, Suffolk, Richmond, Petersburg, Roanoke, Salem, Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Fredericksburg, Charlottesville, Ashland, Big Stone Gap, and every community on the Eastern Shore, including Accomack, Onancock, Chincoteauge, Wachapreague, and Cape Charles, Bloxom, Eastville, Exmore, Greenbackville, Machipongo, Mappsville, Melfa, Nassawadox, Onley, Tangier, Temperanceville, Wachapreague and Wallops Island.

In West Virginia, we can handle personal injury claims in Bluefield, Beckley, Bridgeport, Charles Town, Charleston, Fairmont, Huntington, Lewisburg, Madison, Martinsburg, Morgantown, Moundsville, Parkersburg, Ripley, Sutton, Weirton, Wheeling and any other town or county.

Injury Lawyers licensed in VA, WV, North Carolina (NC), South Carolina (SC), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC.

 

Virginia Beach, VA Personal Injury Attorneys
Virginia (VA) Personal Injury Lawyers
Specializing in Virginia Wrongful Death & Injury Law