Question: My daughter was in a horrible accident with a semi truck. She has traumatic C5 and C6 spinal cord injuries with quadriplegia. At this point, after surgery and two months after the accident, she still needs a ventilator to breathe and is still not feeding herself, although we are hoping this will change, and the doctors have told us that most spine-injured people at C5 and C6 do get off of the ventilator and can feed themselves with special equipment. She does have some movement in the shoulder and elbow. The truck driver admitted that he was talking on his cell phone when he ran a stoplight and hit my daughter’s car. My daughter needs enough compensation to cover all of her expenses for the rest of her life.
Answer by Attorney Eric Hageman: I am very sorry to hear about this accident. Obviously, there is no excuse for a truck driver to talk on a cell phone while driving a vehicle weighing several tons. It is grossly negligent – and illegal – behavior that leads to tragic accidents like the one in which your daughter was injured. With cases like this one, our goals are to get the best compensation package possible for your daughter and, in the process, hold accountable the truck driver and trucking company who were at fault for the accident. Compensation in these kinds of cases generally includes amounts for both past and future medical expenses, cost of care, lost income, pain and suffering, disability, emotional distress, loss of quality of life and other expenses and losses.
Our approach is to take the time to learn about our clients and understand the unique challenges each of them has to overcome. To do this, we spend time with the accident victim – in this case, your daughter – and the family to find out what life was like before the accident and what life is like now. We also implement technology to both gain a better understanding of the needs of our clients and to create video and other evidence that can be used to support claims for compensation. We believe this investment results in higher recoveries for our clients.
With quadriplegia, the needs are many, and could include the following:
- Assistance with feeding, grooming, bathing, dressing, toileting;
- Medical care and treatment;
- Medications;
- Nursing care;
- Assisted care day program or housing;
- Medical equipment, including a wheelchair (or wheelchairs) and a ventilator or other respiratory facilitation equipment;
- Vehicle equipped for specific needs of accident victim;
- Special exercise equipment;
- Speech therapy, if needed;
- Physical therapy;
- Occupational therapy; and
- Psychological counseling.
Accident victims with quadriplegia need to recover enough money to have all of their needs met for their lifetimes. You can contact me for a free consultation to learn what we do for our clients to make sure this happens.
Attorney Eric Hageman represents accident victims and their families in personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits against truck drivers and companies throughout the United States. He is a member of the American Association for Justice (AAJ) Interstate Trucking Litigation Group.
