Can I Claim Compensation for a Head Injury in Tennessee?

Suffering from a head injury in Tennessee can upend your life in terrible and unexpected ways. Depending on its severity, a head injury may cause long-term physical, emotional, and financial distress, prevent you from taking care of your family and home, and interfere with your ability to do the things you love. As if that weren’t enough, head and brain injuries can also be extremely expensive. They often require both immediate and long-term care, and may forever alter your ability to live independently.

Head injuries can happen anywhere, including at work, when shopping, or while driving your car. If your head injury is the result of an accident you did not cause, you may be eligible for compensation to cover your medical expenses, lost wages, emotional duress, physical suffering, and other damages.

It is important to remember that, while you may be entitled to seek damages, the process of claiming compensation for a head injury in Tennessee can be complicated and confusing. Many of these claims involve multiple insurance companies and several different policies, each with loopholes that can be exploited to delay or deny requests for compensation. Having an experienced lawyer on your side helps to protect you against these common insurance company tactics.

Call The Haynes Firm at 423-928-0165 to schedule your FREE case review with one of our experienced head injury attorneys. Located in Johnson City, we welcome clients from all nearby areas of Tennessee. 

What Are the Leading Causes of Head Injury?

The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) reports that slip and fall accidents are the leading cause of head injury and account for nearly half of all brain and head injury hospitalizations. Older adults are at the highest risk for injury from falls. According to the CDC, 3 million adults over the age of 65 are hospitalized following a fall every year. Tragically, around 36,000 individuals at or over retirement age die every year due to fall-related complications.

Slip and fall accidents are a premises liability issue. Property owners and managers are required by law to keep their properties safe for all intended uses. When they fail to do so and injury or death follows, they can often be held liable for related damages. The best way to determine if you can claim compensation for a head injury sustained in a slip and fall accident is through a cost-and-obligation-FREE case review with one of our experienced personal injury lawyers.

Following slip and fall accidents, top causes of head injury in the United States include:

• Motor Vehicle Accidents
• Workplace Accidents
• Assault

Similar to slip and fall accidents, assault may be a premises liability issue, particularly when it takes place on private property. We are here to assess your case, provide straightforward information about your rights, and help you choose the best way to move forward with your claim.

Non-Fatal Head Injury Complications

Complications often follow head injury, both in the immediate and the long term. Sadly, function lost to injury cannot be regained. When you sustain a blow to the head, even if you do not lose consciousness, it is vital to seek a comprehensive medical evaluation as soon as possible. Some head injuries take days to present symptoms. The sooner you can achieve an accurate diagnosis, the higher your chances of treatments that may assist in preserving your cognitive and physical functions.

The most common head injury is a concussion, a type of traumatic brain injury (TBI) caused by a blow to the head. Not all concussions result in a loss of consciousness, but even a mild concussion can cause memory loss, confusion, headaches, vertigo, and more. Additional symptoms of TBI include nausea and vomiting, sensory issues, loss of consciousness, and feeling dizzy. Increased irritability may also accompany a TBI.

Increased irritability in the initial stages of TBI is common. In the long term, mood swings, anxiety and depression, a lack of impulse control, and aggressive outbursts are all possible as well. These may be accompanied by personality changes, an inability to control emotions, suicidal ideation,  and similarly troublesome issues that often necessitate medical and therapeutic services to successfully navigate. These things, of course, cost money, providing one more reason to seek fair compensation through legal action following injury to the head.

Seeking an attorney with experience in concussion cases is paramount as insurance companies and defense lawyers often will give little consideration to an injury that they cannot see.  Concussion TBIs are sometimes referred to as “the invisible injury” because there are usually no visible signs of injury to the head and conventional brain imaging will also not show an injury.  Consequently, the injured person is often neglected by healthcare professionals and their symptoms largely ignored or passed off as related to psychological issues.   Friends, employers, co-workers, and family may not understand the changes that take place in the injured person’s personality or the new issues that may affect a person’s work performance.  A skilled attorney is necessary to illustrate the cause of these changes.  

When Head Injury Leads to Death

Falls are responsible for thousands of deaths every year, but damage to the brain from firearm-related suicide is the leading cause of head injury deaths. Acts of violence from others are also a common cause of fatal head injury.

Acute head injuries, such as those sustained from a gunshot wound or during a car crash, can be fatal, but even those that are not initially fatal can have an impact on life expectancy. Victims of serious head injury are 50x more likely to experience seizures, 9x more likely to suffer infections, and 6x more likely to develop fatal conditions like pneumonia. Tragically, 22 percent of people do not survive the first five years following these serious and debilitating injuries.

The Lifetime Cost of Medical Care

Making the best recovery possible after a head injury requires dozens of medical and healthcare professionals. This may include neurosurgeons, psychiatrists, occupational and physical therapists, behavioral optometrists, speech and language pathologists, mental health counselors, and more. In most cases, each of these parties will bill separately for their services.

The lifetime cost of medical care following a head injury can be astronomical, often extending into the millions. Actual damages are impacted by several factors, including the severity of the injury, the need for assisted care or technology, and the amount of time a victim survives after injury, but victims of head injury can expect at least some financial consequences. 

Lifetime cost estimates do not take into account cognitive struggles, physical pain, emotional turmoil, or any of the non-economic consequences of head injury. For those, you will need to work with a qualified and experienced head injury lawyer.

Head Injury in Tennessee? Our Lawyers Are Here to Help

If you have sustained a head injury in an accident, you deserve effective and personalized representation. Our lawyers are here to help. Entirely client-focused, we will consider how your injury has and will continue to impact your life and help you determine the best option for seeking fair compensation.

To schedule your FREE consultation with one of our Johnson City head injury lawyers, please contact The Haynes Firm today. We serve the counties of Washington, Carter, and Sullivan, and all surrounding areas of Tennessee.