New Albany, IN Personal Injury Lawyer

Personal injuries are not something people plan for in New Albany. While most people go through life relatively unscathed, others find themselves the victims of another’s negligence.

When the unthinkable occurs, you need a legal team that knows how to recover the compensation you need to recover fully. Our team will investigate your case and obtain evidence to accurately assess your damages and ensure each responsible party is held accountable. We will gather medical records from your healthcare providers, employment records to recover lost income, and contact witnesses on your behalf who might be able to help your claim. Most importantly, we can evaluate your pain and suffering damages so you do not settle for an amount less than what your case is worth.

To have your case reviewed for free with our Carmel, IN personal injury attorneys, contact Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166.

Who You Can Do After Suffering Personal Injuries in a New Albany, IN Accident

If someone negligently injures you in an accident, you can take a number of steps to get the help you need while preserving important information for a potential legal claim. By knowing what to do when an accident occurs, you will be prepared should the worst happen and have evidence that can help prove your case. After getting medical attention, our personal injury lawyers can use the evidence you have and gather additional information to assess the damages you have suffered. Taking the following steps is often the best way to settle your case quickly and get the compensation you need:

Report the Accident

The first step to take in many injury cases is to call 911, especially if your injuries were caused by a car accident. When you call 911 to report injuries, the police and emergency medical services (EMS) will be sent to the scene. This will allow you to get medical attention as soon as possible while being able to report the details of the accident to the police for their investigation. After meeting with our team, we will be able to gather those records and reports from the agencies that treated you and investigated your accident.

If your accident was relatively minor, the potential defendant might encourage you not to call the police. Do not listen to this self-serving advice. Police reports not only include critical information about the accident, such as where it occurred and the conditions at the time, but they are also usually necessary to process an insurance claim. Police crash reports will also include the defendant’s contact information, insurance provider, and address where they can be sent legal papers, which is why most would rather not involve the police.

Get Information at the Scene

Of course, you should not move if your injuries are serious. However, if your injuries are such that you can still move about the scene, you should gather information while waiting for the police or EMS.

Start by seeing if any people saw the accident and talk to them before they leave the scene. Witnesses can provide important information you might not have been aware of since they had a different and objective perspective of your accident. Their testimony also carries great weight in a legal claim if their statements are considered credible. Thus, be sure to get statements about what they witnessed and how to contact them later. Our team will reach out to them on your behalf after filing your claim.

You can also preserve evidence for your case by taking pictures with your phone. Pictures of your injuries, damage to your property, and evidence strewn about the accident scene are relevant to your case and can be used as evidence. Much of this evidence will not be available after the scene has been cleaned and you have received treatment, so taking pictures is often the best and only way to keep this evidence for use in your case later.

If your phone was damaged in the accident, you can still take notes of important details. Our memories are not as efficient as we would like to believe. Even important facts can be forgotten later after the stress of the accident has worn off, so take as many notes as possible. There is no such thing as having too much information.

Get Medical Care

Getting medical treatment following your accident is arguably the most important step you can take to support your subsequent legal claim. Without getting medical care and generating records of your treatment, you will have little way of justifying your claims to an insurance company or defense attorney. You will also have no way of accurately calculating your economic damages, which will be the bulk of the compensation you demand on your claim. Therefore, you should go to the emergency room straight from the scene of your accident, even if you do not feel your injuries require it.

You might consider going to an emergency care center rather than the emergency room. However, our lawyers highly recommend getting treatment at the hospital. Emergency rooms typically have more wide-ranging equipment than emergency care centers that can discover injuries that might have gone unnoticed, like internal bleeding. Going to the emergency room also shows that your injuries are serious. If you went to an emergency care center, the defendant could argue that your injuries are not as severe as you claim, lowering the compensation you receive.

Once treatment at the emergency room is complete, you will usually be given instructions on what further treatment you need to get for your injuries. It is important to follow through with your treatment plans. This might mean going to a few physical therapy sessions to reach “maximum medical improvements” or getting ongoing intensive care and surgeries. Either way, you must follow the treatment plan as your doctors lay it out, or you risk losing out on the compensation you need for recovery.

If you have medical records and bills when you meet with our lawyers, that is great but not necessary. One of our jobs is to gather your medical documents from each doctor who treated you.

Meet with Our Attorneys

The last step is to contact our team. The sooner, the better, so we recommend calling after getting care in the emergency room. Our team will use the information you have gathered to understand how your accident happened and who we need to file your claim against. Our team will also investigate the accident scene to uncover evidence you might have missed, like nearby surveillance cameras.

Our New Albany, IN Personal Injury Lawyers Can Help

For a free review of your case today with our Indianapolis, IN personal injury lawyers, call Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166.