Orange County Whiplash Injury Attorney

Whiplash is one of the most common injuries that someone can suffer after a car accident, although it can additionally happen from a sports injury or another situation. The injury happens when there is a sudden impact that causes the victim’s head to jerk forward and down in a rapid “S” motion that tears muscles, tendons, ligaments, and disks in the neck and spine. These injuries may not show themselves immediately, because the soft tissues may take some time to tighten before the victim realizes that they are actually injured. In some cases, it may be a full day or two before the true impact of the crash has shown itself if whiplash is one of the injuries, at which point the victim needs to seek medical attention immediately.

If you have suffered from a whiplash injury after a car accident or another situation that resulted in someone else’s actions or inactions, then you may be eligible to seek compensation in the form of a personal injury lawsuit or a settlement directly with their insurance company depending on the circumstances. The team at Timothy J. Ryan & Associates is experienced with whiplash injuries and ready to take your case as soon as possible. Read more below about how to handle this type of injury and how we can help, and schedule your initial consultation now to get started on the right path.

What To Do After a Whiplash Injury

After you have dealt with the initial parts of an accident, like contacting the police, exchanging insurance information, and making sure that you are safe from any immediate danger, you need to make sure that you address any and all injuries that you have sustained, or suspect that you may have sustained. After a car accident, you will likely be experiencing a serious adrenaline rush, which is a very effective mechanism for masking pain in the immediate moment. Be sure that you stay aware of this fact as you are speaking with EMTs and police officers on the scene, and see a doctor or accept medical attention the moment you realize something is wrong.

There are a few important reasons that you should see a doctor after a whiplash injury accident. Obviously, the first and most important reason is your own personal safety and health, but there are additional reasons that this is a very important step to take. As soon as you see a doctor or medical professional, you are establishing a paper trail that will be very helpful if you are trying to paint a complete picture of the accident and the impacts that it has had on your life, either to the insurance company or a judge and jury.

As soon as you are able to, contact a personal injury lawyer so that you have an understanding of your legal rights and options right off the bat. They will be able to talk to you about the different paths and decisions we could recommend, as well as how we have helped other clients in similar situations as your own in the past. Knowing that you have options and that you have help can be a major stress reliever, and it has been repeatedly proven that stress can cause serious complications during recovery from a physical injury.

Calculating Whiplash Injury Damages

While you are focusing on recovering, the Orange County car accident lawyer team at Timothy J. Ryan & Associates will be working hard to negotiate with insurance companies or building a strong case for when we take your injuries to the California courts. We will begin our calculations by compiling all of the measurable economic damages that you have suffered, from medical bills to lost wages, and even including things like prescription copays, assistive devices, or services that you had to pay for that you would have been able to do on your own had you now suffered from whiplash.

Once we have compiled your economic damages, we will then seek to quantify the severity of your non-economic damages; these include things like the actual pain and suffering that you have endured as a result of your whiplash. Most likely, we will determine a “multiplier,” a number that represents the extent of your non-economic injuries, that we will apply to your economic damages to arrive at a final number.