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Unfortunately, it is quite common for victims in serious accidents to suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI). What’s so surprising is how little attention seems to be paid to the people suffering from this horrible injury. Consider this fact – 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 a car wreck 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) 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.

To get more information about TBI and the legal rights available to a victim who suffered a brain injury in an accident, take a look at these articles and videos:

• In-Depth Guide on How to Seek Damages against an At-Fault Party that Caused a Head Injury
• Shocking Statistics about Traumatic Brain Injuries
• Three of the Most Common Side Effects Associated with a TBI