Philadelphia Injury

Accidents can happen in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, there are times where there was nothing that you could have done to prevent an accident from happening, yet you are the one who gets hurt. In these cases – where someone else’s negligence was the cause of the accident, but you were the one to suffer an injury – the extent of your injuries can vary widely, from relatively minor to life-threatening or even fatal.

Because you were an innocent victim, it would be unfair to expect you to pay for the costs of your injuries. That is where the personal injury lawyers at the Philadelphia law office of Gilman & Bedigian can help. By fighting on your behalf and protecting your rights and interests, we can help you recover the compensation you need and deserve.

Common Injuries You Can Suffer in an Accident in Philadelphia

There are countless ways that you can get hurt in an accident caused by someone else. In fact, the different types of injuries that you can suffer are limited only by the number of body parts you have.

With that said, though, there are some kinds of injuries that are more common than others in certain kinds of accidents, and still other types of injuries that are far more severe than normal.

Whiplash

One of the most common injuries that you can suffer in an accident in or near the city of Philadelphia is whiplash. This condition is especially common after a car crash, or after slipping and falling on someone else’s property.

Despite being a relatively common injury, though, whiplash is a medical condition that very little is known about, for sure. All that doctors agree on is that whiplash involves strained muscles and tendons in your core, torso, neck, and back. These strains can be quite severe, and the location of the muscles and tendons that have been compromised makes whiplash a debilitating and very painful condition to have.

Unfortunately, precisely because so little is known about whiplash, treating it can be difficult, and convincing others that it is a debilitating and painful condition can be tricky. If you suffer whiplash in, for example, a car accident in Philadelphia, and you file a personal injury lawsuit to recover the compensation you deserve, you can count on the defense claiming that you are exaggerating how bad it is. This is just one of the times where a skilled personal injury attorney can make a huge difference in the outcome of your case.

Broken Bones and Fractures

Another very common kind of injury that you can suffer in Philadelphia is a broken bone or a fracture. These are also common injuries in slip and fall accidents or motor vehicle crashes. However, broken bones can also happen in a huge variety of other incidents, like workplace accidents and even dog bites, so long as there is the possibility of a significant impact or blunt force trauma directly to your body, especially if it is to one of your extremities.

Even among these types of accidents, though, there are some broken bones that are more frequent than others. For example:

• Broken legs are a common injury in motorcycle accidents. Because motorcyclists have almost no protection for their lower body in a collision, the impact of an oncoming car tends to land directly on a biker’s legs, pinning them between the car’s fender and the motorcycle. If the car comes from the side, this impact is even more direct and devastating. A broken leg, knee, femur, ankle, foot, hip, or a broken pelvis are all common results from this kind of crash.
• Bicycle accidents often lead to broken wrists. Philadelphians who ride bicycles also face a uniquely-common injury: A broken wrist. Unlike motorcyclists, though, this injury does not typically come from the initial impact. Instead, bikers tend to break their wrists after a crash, when they instinctively throw out their hand to break their fall. While they are often able to minimize the damage to the rest of their body by doing this, the cost is frequently a badly broken wrist.
• A broken hand from a slip and fall. Similarly, people who slip or trip on a dangerous floor condition or unseen obstacle tend to instinctively throw out their hands to break the fall. The impact with the ground, unfortunately, is often more than enough to severely sprain or break a victim’s hand.

Broken bones like these can be very severe injuries, requiring numerous surgeries to correct and extensive physical therapy to heal. Some can even lead to nerve damage that will be a part of the rest of your life.

Nerve Damage

Nerve damage is a common complication if you have suffered another kind of injury in an accident in Philadelphia, especially an injury to your head, neck, or back. These are where your nervous system is clustered, so any serious injuries to those parts of your body can cause significant nerve damage, as well.

However, you can also suffer damage to your nerves, directly, in an instance of medical malpractice. Even if a surgeon slips just a little bit during a procedure, it can touch or even sever a nerve and cause lasting damage. Doctors can also cause nerve damage if they prescribe drugs that interact poorly with each other and overwhelm your internal nervous system.

Injuries to Your Back and Neck

Regardless of whether it implicates your nervous system and causes nerve damage, an injury to your back or to your neck can cause lasting repercussions and lots of pain, as well. Car crashes and slip and fall accidents can create enough physical trauma to damage the vertebrae in your back or neck, which can lead to nerve damage as well as chronic pain and significantly decreased mobility. Repetitive motion injuries that are common in the workplace can also hurt your back by causing problems with the muscles between your vertebrae, called discs.

The worst kinds of back and neck injuries, though, involve damage to your spinal cord. This is where many of the most important nerves are housed, so any damage to your spine can cause irreparable damage that drastically reduces your quality of life.

Chronic Pain

Like whiplash, chronic pain is a serious and debilitating medical condition that very little is known about. Defined by medical researchers and doctors either as pain that has persisted for longer than expected, or pain that does not have a known source, chronic pain is difficult to diagnose and even tougher to treat.

As the name implies, though, chronic pain is a very painful medical condition to have. Whether it is persistent and constant, or intermittent but sharp, chronic pain is a very debilitating symptom and can keep you from partaking in the sorts of activities that you enjoyed, the most. Unfortunately, because you are the only one who can feel the pain and doctors are not sure where it is coming from, having a personal injury lawyer can be necessary to convince others that you are truly suffering.

Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and Mental Anguish

Not all injuries that you can suffer in an accident are physical. Some of the most difficult to overcome are mental and emotional, as the sights and sounds of the incident leave deep scars on your psyche. If the memory of the accident is so vivid that it triggers your fight or flight response, you may be suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome. While therapy is a helpful treatment for many, the mental symptoms that you are suffering from can quickly turn into physical ones – like difficulty eating, or recurring insomnia – if help is not obtained.

Loss of Limb and Amputation Injuries

One of the most severe injuries that you can suffer – and one that is surprisingly common in workplace and construction accidents in Philadelphia – is the loss of a limb. Whether an entire limb is severed or just a finger or toe, the injury can be incredibly painful and traumatizing both for the victim and those in the vicinity.

A surprising source of the loss of a limb is a burn injury. If the muscles and tissues are so damaged by a severe burn, doctors and surgeons might be left wholly unable to repair the damage, leaving them with little option but to amputate.

Vision Loss

Another devastating injury that is possible in a wide variety of accidents in Philadelphia is the loss of your vision. Normally the result of a traumatic brain injury or after direct trauma to your eye, losing your vision can make it much more difficult to live your life to the fullest, especially if the vision loss is complete and to both of your eyes. If the lost vision came from direct eye trauma, you could also suffer post traumatic stress syndrome from the memory of such a horrific accident.

Injuries to Pregnant Women

In some cases, it is not the precise nature of the injury that is the most important detail, but who the victim is. One crucially important example of this is when a pregnant woman is involved in an accident in Philadelphia and gets hurt. No longer is the only potential victim the pregnant woman: The unborn baby can also suffer serious and life-altering injuries, as well.

Making this unfortunate situation even more difficult is the fact that diagnosing injuries in utero is not an easy task. Many injuries that can lead to significant developmental problems can go undetected and untreated, leaving the child with huge obstacles to overcome, even before they are born.

Of course, there is still the possibility that the expectant mother suffers a serious injury, as well. If this injury is bad enough, it can cause problems for both the mother and the unborn child, up to and including a miscarriage.

Injuries to Children in Philadelphia

Even after they are born, children are especially prone to get hurt, and the injuries that they suffer can have more of a lasting impact on their lives because they can cause developmental problems for the victim.

Two especially common scenarios that leave a child hurt in Philadelphia are when a defective product breaks, and when a child ventures onto someone else’s property and gets hurt.

Children play with toys all the time. Unfortunately, they are unlikely to notice when something is wrong with what they are using, that they are using it for a purpose it was not designed for, or that it is about to break. Instead, they keep using it in whatever way is the most amusing. If the product they are using does break, though, it can cause serious injuries.

The other common situation that leads to an injury to a child in Philadelphia is when someone underage ventures onto someone else’s property. Unaware of the dangers that exist, there, the child gets into more trouble than they bargained for, and end up getting hurt. When the child was attracted onto the property by something that is likely to draw inquisitive children – like a swimming pool or batting cage – and if there was no protection afforded to underage visitors, the situation can create premises liability on the part of the property owner or manager.

The Philadelphia Personal Injury Lawyers at Gilman & Bedigian Can Help

If you or someone you love has been hurt in one of these ways – or one of the many other kinds of injury that it is possible to suffer – then getting legal representation can be the best way to ensure that you are not also saddled with the costs of your recovery, as well. It is already bad enough that you were hurt through no fault of your own because someone else acted recklessly or negligently and caused an accident.

The personal injury lawyers at the Philadelphia law offices of Gilman & Bedigian can help by advocating on your behalf both in the courtroom and outside of it, pushing for your interests and working diligently to protect your rights. Contact us online for the legal help you need.