You gaze out your car window at runners in the park. They look so happy—determined and focused. You used to love that feeling. Cold foggy mornings on the trail. Pushing yourself, sweating and straining, and cresting that next hill with nothing around but birds and the ocean on the horizon. You look down at your legs—those are all distant memories now. Since the accident you can hardly walk, with your leg hanging limp, let alone run the trails like you used to. At first, you were so thankful that you had survived where few thought you would, but now, as the pain persists and your quality of life continues to feel so degraded, you have days where you question your luck.
The doctors you have seen call it “peripheral nerve damage,” and how bad it is determines whether you will ever heal. Peripheral nerves send signals to the brain from different parts of the body, and the symptoms experienced depend upon whether the nerves that were damaged were motor, sensory, or autonomic nerves. Motor nerves control motor activities of the body, autonomic control things such as breathing and heart beats, while sensory nerves send messages about what those parts of your body are feeling through touch or temperature.
Damage to peripheral nerves can be caused by a wide range of accidents, from a bad car wreck, to a simple repetitive motion, like typing. Car accidents make up 46% of the causes of peripheral nerve damage. Healing from the damage suffered can range from the simple passage of time for minor injuries to major surgery where nerve reconstruction is performed. Regardless of the type of treatment prescribed for the specific peripheral nerve damage, the likelihood of success and recovery varies greatly. In all cases, physical therapy and professional rehabilitation can be beneficial to maximizing the extent of recovery while minimizing the recovery time.
The initial costs faced after a major accident can be daunting: medical bills, recovery for a damaged car, time lost from work. Then there are the additional costs from ongoing treatment and the reduced quality of life. That initial payout from the insurance company that seemed so generous at the time diminishes in luster with each passing day and week, just as your quality of life and bank account balance continue to shrink.
Any time you have experienced a car accident, it is beneficial to consult with an attorney. It is even more important to consult an attorney for assistance when faced with an injury where the potential of long-term impacts can be lost to the lay person when faced with the immediate possibility of recovery. An experienced attorney can maintain a perspective that is necessary to ensure that the long-term damage and harms suffered are adequately compensated.
Crashes with big rigs tend to be particularly severe and can wreak havoc on a person’s body and life. If you or a family member has been injured in a bad wreck with a truck, call us at 888.777.1776 or use our online contact form. Delays can hurt your case, so please don’t wait.
