Staten Island Catastrophic Injury Lawyer
After a Devastating Personal Injury Accident, Victims and Their Families Need to Call Our Staten Island Catastrophic Injury Lawyer
Serious and catastrophic injuries are life-altering events that can have profound and long-lasting effects on victims and their families. These injuries often result in significant physical, emotional, and financial challenges that can persist for years or even a lifetime. Unfortunately, our Staten Island serious and catastrophic injuries lawyer knows that unintentional injuries are the third leading cause of death in the United States, resulting in over 227,000 wrongful deaths every year. Of these catastrophic injuries, the two most severe types of spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injuries. Sadly, there are a lot of these types of catastrophic injuries, including almost 18,000 new spinal cord injury cases each year in the United States. Whereas there are over 2.8 million new traumatic brain injuries that occur every year in the United States.
That’s why, here at the O’Connor Personal Injury Law Firm, our compassionate and experienced legal team work with leading liability and medical experts to help support victims and their families who have suffered serious and catastrophic injuries. It does not matter how your injuries were caused, our personal injury lawyer and bodily injury law firm is happy to sit down and discuss your potential case during a free consultation. To learn more about your rights to compensation under New York law after a life-changing accident, call our Staten Island serious and catastrophic injuries lawyer to schedule your free consultation.
Common Causes of Serious and Catastrophic Injuries in New York
There are many possible causes of serious and catastrophic injuries in Staten Island and the rest of the Empire State. Many of these common causes are entirely avoidable, largely because they are caused by the reckless, careless, and outright negligent actions of defendants that could have prevented the accident.
Some of the most common causes of serious and catastrophic injuries in Staten Island that our personal injury lawyer can handle for you include the following:
Car Accidents
Motor vehicle collisions remain one of the leading causes of serious and catastrophic injuries. High-speed impacts, rollovers, and collisions with larger vehicles can result in severe trauma to occupants. Common serious injuries from car accidents include spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and multiple fractures. Surprisingly, low-speed crashes can still result in serious personal injuries and the wrongful death of an innocent person just like high-speed crashes can. Additionally single-vehicle accidents can also be just as deadly for passengers as multiple-vehicle crashes, although many passengers involved in a single-vehicle crash may not realize that they have a valid case.
Trucking Accidents
Collisions involving large commercial trucks often result in catastrophic injuries due to the sheer size and weight of these vehicles. Occupants of smaller vehicles are at particularly high risk of severe injuries in such accidents, including crush injuries, traumatic amputations, and fatal internal injuries. However, other debilitating injuries such as traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, broken bones, and other paralyzing injuries often lead to significant pain and suffering. Although there are many causes of trucking accidents in New York, our Staten Island serious and catastrophic injuries lawyer knows that many trucking accidents involve violations of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) which could be used to help support your case.
Dog Bites
Although many dog bites result in minor injuries, severe animal attacks can cause significant trauma, particularly to children and the elderly. Catastrophic injuries from dog bites may include severe lacerations, nerve damage, and infections that can lead to long-term complications or even death in extreme cases. Other injuries include dislocations, separations, torn muscles, puncture wounds, broken bones, and other serious or life-changing injuries.
Motorcycle Accidents
Motorcyclists are particularly vulnerable on the road due to their lack of protection like seatbelts, airbags, and even just the steel shell of a car around them like other motorists. Accidents involving motorcycles frequently result in serious injuries such as traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, amputations, internal organ injuries, dislocations, and fractures. Unfortunately, many defense lawyers and insurance adjusters will blame motorcyclists for their injuries and for causing the accident due to an unfair stigma, which is why victims must retain an experienced Staten Island serious and catastrophic injuries lawyer.
Slip and Falls
Although often underestimated, slip and fall accidents can lead to severe injuries, especially among older adults and children. Hip fractures, traumatic brain injuries, and spinal cord injuries are some of the most serious consequences of these accidents, as well as other types of fractures or dislocations. Slip and falls occur when a person steps onto a substance that causes them to slip, slide, shift, or otherwise lose balance and fall to the ground due to the loss of friction. They commonly occur on snow and ice, spills, leaks, and other conditions that result in slippery conditions.
Trip and Falls
Similar to slip and falls, trip and fall accidents can result in similar catastrophic injuries to victims and their families. These often occur due to uneven surfaces, poorly maintained walkways, or obstacles in pedestrian areas. Serious injuries can include complex fractures, head trauma, and spinal injuries. Unlike slip and falls, trip and falls occur when a person encounters a condition that causes them to stumble, shuffle, shift, get caught, or otherwise trip on an object and fall to the floor. Common causes include debris on the ground, uneven flooring, cords, bunched carpets, and other similar tripping hazards.
Nursing Home Abuse, Neglect and Negligence
The vulnerable population in nursing homes can suffer catastrophic injuries due to neglect or intentional abuse. Serious falls, medication errors, and physical abuse can lead to life-threatening injuries in elderly residents. Sometimes these injuries are unintentional due to neglect or understaffing, whereas other times they are due to malicious staff members who abuse victims. Sadly, some nursing home injuries are also caused due to the negligence of healthcare providers who fail to comply with the standard of care required of them.
Bicycle Accidents
With more and more people choosing bicycles for transportation and recreation, accidents involving cyclists have become increasingly common around Staten Island. Collisions with motor vehicles or falls from bicycles can result in severe head trauma, spinal cord injuries, and multiple fractures that may require the installation of painful hardware that is permanent and debilitating.
Construction Accidents
New York’s Labor Laws protect construction workers and other laborers from the negligence of their employers, contractors, and certain owners of projects. If a construction worker is injured in a work accident, New York laws hold these defendants strictly liable in certain situations. That’s because the law places the burden of protecting workers on the employers and supervisors – not the individual worker who might be forced to work under unsafe conditions in order to earn money to feed their family. Construction accidents involving falls, hit by an object, electrocutions, and being crushed by an object are the most common types of accidents. Whenever you have been injured in a construction accident, immediately call the O’Connor Personal Injury Law Firm to protect your rights.
Pedestrians Hit by Car or Pedestrian Knockdowns
Pedestrian accidents often result in catastrophic injuries due to the complete lack of protection for the victim. These incidents frequently lead to severe head injuries, spinal cord damage, and multiple traumatic injuries throughout the body such as fractures, internal organ injuries, paralysis, amputations, scarring/disfigurement, and other catastrophic harm that should be handled only by an experienced Staten Island serious and catastrophic injuries lawyer.
Medical Malpractice
When healthcare professionals fail to meet the accepted standard of care, the consequences can be devastating. Surgical errors, misdiagnosis, medication mistakes, and birth injuries are just a few examples of medical malpractice that can lead to catastrophic outcomes for patients. Other types of serious medical errors can lead to life-changing and life-threatening injuries, often causing significant pain and suffering, lost wages, and medical bills. Victims of these types of cases need to speak with an experienced personal injury lawyer to ensure that their rights are well-protected under the law.
Common Types of Serious and Catastrophic Injuries
Victims who are injured in any of the accidents listed above, or any other type of personal injury accident in Staten Island, could be seriously injured in a multitude of ways. Such injuries could be temporary and only last a few weeks or months, whereas other injuries may last for years or even be permanent.
Some of the most common types of personal injuries and bodily harm that our Staten Island serious and catastrophic injuries lawyer could handle for you and your family include the following:
Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI)
TBIs range from mild concussions to severe brain damage. These injuries can affect cognitive function, motor skills, and emotional regulation, often requiring long-term care and rehabilitation. Unfortunately, TBIs do not always show up on imaging studies and therefore require a skilled lawyer to help build a damages case and prove the injury.
Spinal Cord Injuries (SCI)
Damage to the spinal cord can result in partial or complete paralysis, affecting mobility and sensation below the point of injury. These injuries often require lifelong medical care and assistive technologies – even when they are partial and lower on the spinal column. However, complete injuries or injuries that are higher up on the spinal cord may require a victim to have around-the-clock care and attention. Needless to say, defense lawyers and adjusters know that these cases are valued high due to their damages and conscious pain and suffering, and therefore will vehemently defend these cases without fairly paying them.
Broken Bones or Fractures
Although many fractures heal without long-term consequences, complex or multiple fractures can lead to chronic pain, limited mobility, and the need for multiple surgeries or ongoing physical therapy. They may also require the insertion of painful hardware that could stay inside a person for their entire life, or which could need to be removed in a second surgery. Even though broken bones may also be one of the most common types of personal injuries in an accident, that does not mean that they are not important. Oftentimes broken bones result in significant pain and suffering, medical bills, and lost wages which can be recovered under New York law.
Amputations or Loss of a Limb
The loss of a limb, whether through traumatic injury in an accident or as a necessary medical intervention following an accident, is a life-changing event that requires significant physical and emotional adjustment. It is a permanent injury that is irreversible. No prosthetic can replace the loss of a limb, no matter how hard that a defense lawyer or insurance adjuster may argue that it does. Do not let them do that in front of a jury. Call our experienced Staten Island serious and catastrophic injuries lawyer to stand up for your rights to compensation.
Nerve Injuries
Damage to peripheral nerves can cause chronic pain, loss of sensation, and impaired motor function. Some nerve injuries may heal over time with proper treatment, while others can result in permanent disability due to neuromas or from scar tissue in an avulsion.
Organ Injuries
Blunt force or penetrating injuries can cause severe damage to internal organs. These injuries may require emergency surgery and can lead to long-term health complications or the need for organ transplantation in severe cases. Unfortunately, some internal injuries may not be repairable and result in a painful death due to the negligence of a defendant.
Did You or a Loved One Suffer Life-Altering or Life-Threatening Injuries in New York? Call Our Staten Island Catastrophic Injury Lawyer for Help Today
Navigating the aftermath of a serious or catastrophic injury is a complex and often overwhelming process. Unfortunately, insurance adjusters will not make the process easier and may try to minimize or undermine your otherwise valuable case. Indeed, serious and catastrophic injuries have far-reaching consequences that extend well beyond the initial trauma. They affect not only the victim but also their family and community such as employers or others who depend on the victim. Understanding the common causes and types of these injuries is the first step in prevention and in knowing when to seek legal help.
To learn more about your rights to compensation under New York law, call the O’Connor Personal Injury Law Firm to schedule a free consultation with our Staten Island serious and catastrophic injuries lawyer by dialing (866) 927-3809 or by sending us an email through our “Contact Us” box available here. Our compassionate and skilled legal team can sit down with you and answer your questions, share your rights, and help you move forward and heal after an accident. To get started, contact us today.