Jacksonville Brain Injury Attorneys

Have you suffered a brain injury as a result of a severe blow to the head, penetrating brain injury or from medical negligence? You should speak with our Jacksonville brain injury attorneys at (904) 292-1111 or fill out our free case review form.

Our Jacksonville brain injury attorneys at Abbott Law Group understand the seriousness of brain injury and our legal team of attorneys, legal nurses, and paralegals will fight for you to receive fair financial compensation. Our legal team members are brain injury experts and have many years litigating in front of juries for cases which involve traumatic brain injuries.

Brain Injury Compensation

If you suffered a serious brain injury, depending on the circumstances of your injury, you may be eligible to file a lawsuit to receive compensation for medical bills, pain, and suffering, lost wages, emotional distress, punitive damages, property damages, or funeral and burial expenses.

Do I have a Brain Injury Case?

Most brain injury cases are based on negligence which requires the plaintiff to prove that other party is legally responsible for the injury. A plaintiff must prove the following:

The defendant failed to act with reasonable care toward the plaintiff
The defendant’s action (or inaction) was the cause of the plaintiff’s injuries
The brain injury damages caused a financial burden

Forms of Treatment for Brain Injuries

You should immediately seek prompt medical attention if you show any signs of mild to severe traumatic brain injury. There isn’t much that can be done to overturn the damage, and most hospitals will do everything possible to keep the injury from progressing. Imaging tests are detrimental in diagnosing the patient since the primary concern is to make sure sufficient oxygen is being supplied to the brain. In a mild case, x-rays are helpful in determining if there are any fractures or spinal problems. A CT scan is necessary for treating patients suffering from severe cases of TBI. Rehabilitation, speech therapy, and occupational therapy are other treatment programs to aid those suffering from severe TBI.

What is the Outcome of Severe Head Trauma?

Over half of the patient’s suffering from severe head trauma will require surgery to deal with the ruptured vessels or swollen brain tissue. Impairments from the brain injury depend on where the injury has occurred, the age of the person, the condition, and overall health, and the level of damage. Other disabilities include cognitive problems, loss of a person’s sensory abilities, behavioral issues and lack of communication. Severe injuries could result in an individual in a vegetative state for long periods of time.

Recovery Period from a Brain Injury

Recovery from a brain injury depends on the person and the type of injury that they’ve sustained. It can take as little as one month and up to several years after the trauma has taken place. The shorter the amount of time a patient was in a coma, the better the outcome. The same can be said for the patient’s experience with amnesia. People over 59 and under the age of two can have the worst recovery prediction because of their age.

People who experience a brain injury may not show signs or symptoms immediately, so they and others may conclude that they were not injured. It is therefore crucial for injured people and their loved ones to know what to look for when there has been an injury involving the head.

Brain Injury Statistics from the CDC

Research which been compiled by the CDC on the causes, frequency and effects of brain injury have reported the following:

Brain injuries are most often the result of car accidents, physical violence or accidental falls.
One person sustains a brain injury approximately every 21 seconds.
If the brain injury suffered was mild or moderate, the majority of injured people can expect to recover fully. However, they still suffer from disruptive effects throughout the course of the recovery period.
Approximately two percent of the population in the US currently lives with disabilities that were sustained from a brain injury. This percentage equates to 5.3 million people.
Roughly one million individuals are treated for traumatic brain injury in hospital emergency rooms every year.

Types of Brain Injuries Seen In The Courtroom

Concussion

Concussions are caused when the brain receives trauma from a sudden movement or momentum change. Blood vessels in the brain may overstretch, and cranial nerves occasionally get damaged.

A concussion can be caused by blows to the head, gunshot wounds, force from a whiplash type injury or violent shaking of the head. Moreover, the closed and open head injuries can result in a concussion. This is the most frequent type of traumatic brain injury.

A brain injury that involves a concussion may or may not be diagnosed through an imaging test, e.g., the CAT Scan. Additionally, skull fracture, brain bleeding or swelling may or may not be present. This makes concussion to be defined by exclusion and is referred to as a complex neurobehavioral syndrome.

Contusion

A Contusion is a significant blow to the body which causes bruising or swelling. Under most circumstances, contusions do not need medical attention.

But if the head is struck, and it causes a contusion, it may cause a need for concern.

In order for contusions to heal, they must clot. If a person is unable to clot or there happen to be massive amounts of internal bleeding on the brain, it could become a more serious condition known as a cerebral hemorrhage.

Coup-contrecoup Injury

Coup-contrecoup describes contusions in two dimensions. This is at the site of the impact and on the direct opposite side of the brain.

This type of brain injury occurs when the impact is not only immensely enough to cause a contusion at the area of impact but is also in a position to move the brain and make it to slam to the opposite side of the skull which results into an additional contusion.

Diffuse Axonal Injury

This sort of brain injury is caused by vigorous rotation of the head or shaking as with shaken baby syndrome or by rotational forces such as an accident. The damage occurs because the stable brain lags behind the movement made by the skull causing brain structures to wear off. There is immense tearing of the nerve tissue all over the brain. This may cause chemicals in the brain to be released causing additional injury. The wearing of the nerve e tissue disrupts the normal communication of the brain and chemical processes.

An individual with Diffuse Axonal injury could result in a variety of functional impairment depending on where the shearing was experienced in the brain.

Second Impact Syndrome

Suffering a second brain injury while still recovering from a previous brain injury is called a second impact syndrome.

When a person has a traumatic brain injury, it could take months or years to heal the damaged brain tissue. During the recovery period, the brain has weakened tissues or structure which cannot endure the kind of impacts an otherwise healthy person would.

Going through a second impact could greatly set a person back in the healing process and possibly even cause irreversible brain damage.

Second impacts rarely happen, but when they do they should be examined immediately by a medical professional.

They may come from a fall, an auto accident, a sports accident, or an injury while on the job.

If you or a family member were injured by a second impact, which resulted in additional brain damage, then you should speak with our attorneys right away.

Traumatic Brain Injury

The most frequent types of traumatic brain injuries come from tissue damage inside the brain and can often lead to unconsciousness or coma.

Traumatic Brain Injury types can be broken up into three categories

Closed Brain Injuries: happen when the brain slams into the skull but there is no open head wound.
Open Brain Injuries: happen when an object goes through the skull like a piece of metal, a knife, a bullet, or glass during a traffic accident.
Acquired Brain Injury: This is when a child has a disorder or disease from birth and it happens to slowly get worse over time. When the injury matures, it can have lasting effects on the individual.

When it comes to the courtroom, traumatic brain injury cases are handled with the utmost care. The long-lasting effects may take substantial amounts of medical treatment which can lead to lengthy medical bills.

Brain Injury Attorneys at the Abbott Law Group

If you or a loved one became injured and suffered a brain injury, then you should speak with our Jacksonville brain injury attorneys right away. Our attorneys are board certified experts and know what it will take to recover and live with a traumatic brain injury. Contact us for a free case evaluation at (904) 292-1111 to see what your legal rights are today.