Dealing with the Long-term Impact of Personal Injuries

Personal injury is any injury to your body, mind, or emotions caused by someone else’s negligence. Some examples are slips and falls, car crashes, motorbike accidents, truck accidents, and bicycle accidents. Damage to your reputation is also classified as personal injury.

Personal injury has some long-term impacts on victims. The most common is bodily harm, which can leave you with permanent damage. Injuries also have financial implications for victims, among others. This article discusses some long-term effects that a personal injury can cause a person and how to deal with them.

Physical Effects

Personal injuries include burns that cause permanent scarring, fractures and dislocations that do not heal properly, loss of a limb or a digit, head trauma, bite marks, and so on. According to a Memphis injury lawyer, these injuries could be caused by home accidents, traffic collisions, play or sports (like soccer), medical negligence, or workplace accidents.

Reckless drivers usually cause injuries from car accidents. There are more than a million personal injury claims in the US every year as a result of car accidents.

Slips and fall injuries are caused by facility owners failing to place warning signs on wet or recently polished floors, staircases, and faulty escalators.

Product liability injuries are caused by faulty products or those erroneously designed or labelled. Hazardous toys, faulty chainsaws, bad tyres, and so on cause accidents in the US annually, leading to many personal injury claims yearly.

Proper medical care will help you deal with the effects of a physical injury. This might not entirely replace any permanent damage, but there are medical procedures that can help reduce the effect of permanent damage on your body.

Psychological Effects

People who suffer personal injuries experience some form of post-traumatic stress disorder.

You must have seen a few dog attack survivors who are unable to function properly if they sight a dog, no matter how small or well-trained the dog may be. You must have also seen some workers who panic at the sound of some machines because of an injury they suffered.

The stress and anxiety of personal injuries also extend to family, friends and acquaintances. A person who witnessed a medical misdiagnosis will be paranoid every time they have to go to a hospital. It is the same with a person who saw a dog attack – all dogs have lost cuteness in that person’s eyes.

Many personal injuries have also affected many people’s ability to form relationships with others or maintain the ones they have. They have even affected their ability to focus on work, especially injuries that leave a scar or an indelible mark that they cannot hide. These accidents often lead to depression that is not easy to get out of, even with a personal injury lawyer helping you file and collect compensation for the injury suffered.

The best way to deal with the psychological effects of a personal injury is to seek professional help.

Financial Effects

Every injury will cause you to spend money, some more than others. You will spend funds on therapies, medications, and rehabilitation programs tailored to address specific symptoms and promote healing. However, with a personal injury lawyer, you can claim monetary compensation to help you sort these bills. You can also claim monetary compensation on the following grounds:

Loss of significant income: You will not get the working hours you lose due to personal injuries, especially workplace injuries. All those hours spent in recovery must be recovered somehow. This also applies to injuries outside your workplace that cost you significant working hours and daily income.

Medical expenses: Every injury requires a doctor’s attention, which is not accessible or cheap. Some injuries will hurt your pockets more than others. However, a personal injury lawyer can help you secure the compensation to sort this out.

Loss of or damage to property: In the case of personal injuries caused by fire outbreaks (that are no fault of yours, of course), car accidents or faulty products, your property can also suffer damage which requires replacement or fixing. Your lawyer can help you secure enough damages or compensation to recover your injury and replace your damaged properties.

Disability: Monetary compensation might not be enough for personal injuries that lead to disabilities. However, it will go a long way toward mitigating the lifestyle changes caused by these disabilities.

Seeking support for your injuries is the best solution to dealing with them. Whether joining a support group or going to therapy, finding comfort in people who understand and can relate will help you heal faster from injuries.

While the scars on your body may remain, the scars left on your mind and soul will fade with the proper support. Personal injury lawyers can help set you up on your path to recovery, starting with the compensation claims and helping you bring down the hammer of justice on the cause of your pain.