Belleville Whiplash Lawyer
Suffering Soft Tissue Injuries After a Car Crash? Call Hipskind & McAninch, LLC
When we think serious injury, we often picture broken bones, head trauma, and lots of blood. Lurking behind the injuries we can clearly see, however, are soft tissue injuries. Though harder to spot, these injuries are serious, painful, and have long-term consequences. You deserve to be treated and compensated for them if they were caused by another person’s negligence, and we want to help.
Do You Have a Soft Tissue Injury?
Soft tissue refers to any of the connective tissues that surround the bones and joints in the human body. Thus, a soft tissue injury is one that involves damage to any of the muscles, tendons, or ligaments of the body. Examples of soft tissue injuries range from mild sprains or strains to whiplash and tendon rupture.
Whiplash is a specific type of soft tissue injury causing neck pain due to damage to the ligaments, tendons, and/or muscles in the neck. Whiplash and other soft tissue injuries can occur in a variety of situations, but are most commonly seen after motor vehicle accidents.
Effects of Soft Tissue Injuries
The most common effect of a soft tissue injury is pain with stiffness and/or tenderness. Even when the injury is relatively minor, this pain can interfere with your daily life, preventing you from doing your job or taking care of your children for a period of time. For many victims, it also interferes with their sleep, which leads to a host of other medical issues.
Unfortunately, some soft tissue injuries can cause permanent damage. A severe whiplash injury, for example, can cause brain injury, muscle spasms or tearing, ligament stretching and instability, and even fracture the spine, causing permanent disability. These effects are drastically increased when you wait a long time to be evaluated by a doctor.
Car Accidents and Liability
An important thing to note about soft tissue injuries is that while symptoms may occur immediately, it is not uncommon for these injuries to emerge over the course of several days following the accident, or even longer. This, combined with the fact that you can’t physically see the injury, can make it harder to identify.
It is extremely important to seek medical care immediately after a car accident—within 72 hours, if possible. An opposing legal team could try to negate your claim by showing that you didn’t report symptoms for days and that no injury showed up physically or in X-rays. Records of medical care and a medical professional’s opinion that a soft tissue injury has occurred can stop that strategy in its tracks.
Documenting your medical care helps prove that the injury for which you are seeking compensation does indeed exist, proves the necessity for compensation, and lays the groundwork for demonstrating liability. An experienced Belleville car accident attorney can then work to prove liability by using police reports, traffic laws, photo or video evidence, cellphone records, and accident reconstruction experts to prove that the other driver was negligent.
Hire Experienced Belleville Car Accident Attorneys
Attorneys John Hipskind and Brady McAninch have worked both sides of car accident cases. Before opening their own firm, they had more than ten years of previous experience working for insurance companies in St. Louis. This experience gives them invaluable knowledge on how to build the strongest case to maximize your settlement.
Don’t let a soft tissue injury upend your life. We at Hipskind & McAninch, LLC, are ready to get to know you and your case. Call our Belleville office at 618-641-9189 for a free consultation. You don’t pay a dime until we win.