346-590-6665Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyer in Houston
Representing Injury Victims in Their Fight for Compensation
Your brain is one of your body’s most essential and intricate structures. It controls all of the body’s functions, including everything from your heartbeat to telling your lungs to inhale and exhale, and it’s responsible for your personality, thoughts, and emotions. It also controls your movement and balance and processes all of the input you receive through your senses.
Because the brain is responsible for so many functions, an injury to this organ can have devastating consequences. Even mild traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) can cause confusion and problems with memory and concentration as well as physical symptoms, such as fatigue, blurry vision, headaches and sensitivity to light. Moderate or severe TBIs are extremely serious and can result in loss of consciousness, paralysis, and other complications that can take months or years to recover from. Unfortunately, some victims are left with permanent disabilities.
If you were in an accident and suffered a traumatic brain injury, you may have the right to seek compensation for your medical bills and expenses and your emotional pain and suffering through the civil court system. The first step is to talk to a Houston brain injury lawyer about your options. At Moises Morales Law, we help clients pursue legal claims against the negligent parties that caused their brain injuries and help those victims get the compensation they deserve. Call 346-590-6665 today to schedule an appointment to discuss your case.
What Qualifies as a Traumatic Brain Injury?
A traumatic brain injury is any injury to the brain that was caused by an outside force. This can include being struck with an object or falling and hitting your head on another surface, such as a table or the floor. The difference between a head injury and a traumatic brain injury is that a head injury can refer to any injury to the brain, skull, or scalp. For example, if you were to hit your head on a metal shelf and cut your scalp, this is a head injury. Traumatic brain injuries are a more serious type of head injury where the damage to the brain results in problems with brain function.
The medical community generally classifies traumatic brain injuries as either penetrating or nonpenetrating. A traumatic brain injury is classified as penetrating if an object actually goes through the skull and into the brain tissue itself. These are some of the most severe traumatic brain injuries and can result in lifelong symptoms and even death.
Nonpenetrating traumatic brain injuries are more common when an accident victim strikes their head against an object, which results in blunt-force trauma. For example, if you are in a car accident and hit your head on the steering wheel, this may result in a nonpenetrating traumatic brain injury. This type of injury can also happen from the force of the brain hitting the inside of the skull, which often occurs due to the sudden impact in auto accidents, for example. Nonpenetrating traumatic brain injuries can still be extremely serious, potentially resulting in a concussion, vision problems, and cognitive impairment.
What Are the Symptoms of a Traumatic Brain Injury?
Because the brain controls all of the body’s actions and signals, the symptoms of a traumatic brain injury can vary widely and affect different aspects in different people. The signs of a traumatic brain injury can be physical, behavioral, and cognitive.
Physical Symptoms
Common physical symptoms of a traumatic brain injury include headaches, unequal pupil size, and vision problems. Victims may feel nauseous or vomit, and clear fluid coming from the nose or ears can indicate a cerebrospinal fluid leak. Weakness in the limbs, difficulty speaking, and loss of balance can also be symptoms of a traumatic brain injury or stroke. In some cases, victims may also experience loss of consciousness or seizures.
It’s also common for those with a traumatic brain injury to experience issues with sensation and perception. They may hear, see, or taste things that aren’t actually there. Ringing in the ears, issues with taste, and a sensitivity to stimuli like lights and noises are all common.
Behavioral Symptoms
Being involved in an accident is traumatic, and it is normal to experience some changes in behavior or mood afterward. For example, someone might have a stronger startle response, be afraid of getting in a car, or be uncharacteristically emotional. However, sudden changes in behavior and personality after a blow to the head can also indicate a traumatic brain injury.
Specific signs to look out for include changes in sleep patterns, which can be either excessive drowsiness or insomnia, sudden mood swings, and unusual violent or aggressive behaviors.
Cognitive Symptoms
Cognitive symptoms can be some of the most frustrating that victims experience, and they can also be some of the slowest to heal after a brain injury. Victims may experience ongoing issues with memory and concentration. They may not be able to remember the names of objects or people and may get easily confused or disoriented. Anything that takes intense focus, such as reading or math, can be especially frustrating.
How Is a Traumatic Brain Injury Diagnosed?
If you experienced any of the above symptoms after an accident, it’s critical that you seek medical attention immediately to be evaluated for a traumatic brain injury. It’s not uncommon for victims to not remember hitting their heads, especially if they lost consciousness, so it’s important not to rule out the possibility of a TBI until you’ve been evaluated by a medical professional.
A doctor can run a series of tests, including a CT scan or an MRI, to get a better understanding of how your brain was affected. These scans develop an image of your brain, and the medical team can then identify potential areas of damage as well as swelling or bleeding on the brain.
The Glasgow Coma Scale is another tool doctors use to assess the severity of a brain injury. Doctors ask the victim to follow a series of instructions, such as opening their eyes or wiggling their toes. Each response is scored, and the higher the number, the more awake and aware the patient is — which generally means a less severe brain injury.
Your health care team will take all of these results, as well as any details you can remember from the accident, to determine whether you suffered a traumatic brain injury and its severity. This diagnosis and the associated medical records can become a critical part of a personal injury case later on.
What Types of Accidents May Cause a Traumatic Brain Injury?
Serious brain injuries can happen in almost any type of accident, but they’re more common in situations that involve a strong impact to the head. Below, we discuss some of the most common types of accidents that result in traumatic brain injuries.
Car Accidents
Car accidents usually involve a strong impact and a sudden stop. The force of this impact can cause the victim’s body to fall forward or backward, striking their head in the process. Examples include:
- Rear-end collisions. When someone hits you from behind, it can send your body and head forward quickly, potentially hitting the steering wheel or the dashboard. Even if your head doesn’t make direct impact with an object, the sudden movement can mean your brain hits the inside of your skull, causing an injury
- Head-on collisions. This type of accident is especially dangerous because the force of the two vehicles gets added together. In a head-on collision, it’s also possible for the victim to experience a penetrating traumatic brain injury if debris from the other vehicle enters the car
Whether they were driving the vehicle or simply riding along, such as being a rideshare passenger, victims can seek damages from the liable parties after an accident through personal injury claims.
Commercial Vehicle Accidents
Commercial vehicles are generally heavier and larger than regular passenger vehicles, which can make these accidents more severe. The force of the impact is stronger, increasing the risk of a serious traumatic brain injury. These accidents also commonly happen on interstates and highways, where the vehicles are operating at higher speeds. If the victim’s vehicle rolls over as part of the accident, there’s the potential for multiple impacts to the head, which can significantly increase the risk of a severe traumatic brain injury.
Construction Accidents
Falling or being struck by an object are two of the most common types of accidents that happen on construction sites. And both of these situations carry a high risk of a head injury. Falling from a ladder or scaffolding can result in a high-impact collision with the ground and potentially other objects along the way. While wearing a hard hat offers some protection, it’s possible for a victim to suffer a traumatic brain injury even with this layer if the impact is strong enough.
Slip and Fall Accidents
Many traumatic brain injuries are the result of slip and fall accidents. A slick aisle at the grocery store or busted sidewalk outside of a shopping center can cause someone to fall and hit their head, potentially causing a concussion or other brain injury. If someone was negligent in ensuring that the premises were appropriately maintained or didn’t have signs warning patrons of the hazard, it could mean they are liable for the victim’s damages.
No matter what type of accident you were involved in, you can file a claim against a negligent party if you suffered damages due to a brain injury. Our attorneys are here to help you through the process and ensure you have legal counsel every step of the way.
What Type of Compensation Can You Get for a Traumatic Brain Injury?
The damages in any brain injury case generally include economic and noneconomic losses. Exactly how much your brain injury claim may be worth depends on the details of the accident, who was at fault, and the severity of the injuries.
Economic Losses
Brain injury victims often sustain significant financial losses because these injuries may require surgery, and they often take months or years to heal. This may mean that the victim needs continued monitoring from a medical team that may include a neurologist, an ophthalmologist, a speech-language pathologist, and a neuropsychologist. These appointments and ongoing tests can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. It’s also likely that the victim will need extended time off of work, which means they are also suffering from a loss of income. A traumatic brain injury attorney can help victims recover compensation for these losses from the negligent party.
Noneconomic Losses
Texas allows the plaintiff of a personal injury lawsuit to include pain and suffering in their damages. For those with brain injuries, these are often substantial. Chronic headaches and nerve pain can have a significant effect on the victim’s quality of life and may hamper their ability to work. If the person experiences depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, or loss of enjoyment in life, they may be able to seek compensation for those losses.
Understanding your legal options after an accident that left you with a traumatic brain injury can be challenging, but you don’t have to go through the process alone. The team at Moises Morales Law is here to help you understand whether you have a case, how much that case could be worth, and when you need to file. Call 346-590-6665 to speak to one of the Houston brain injury attorneys at our firm to learn what it means to work with our team.