March is Brain Injury Awareness Month, and it’s an important opportunity to understand how devastating brain injuries from car accidents can affect victims and their families. A brain injury can change lives permanently, resulting in significant medical bills, emotional challenges, and financial stress. If you suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a car accident in Delaware, you deserve fair compensation, and knowing what influences these awards can make all the difference.
How does the severity and type of brain injury affect compensation?
Every brain injury is unique, and the type and severity greatly affect compensation. For example, mild traumatic brain injuries, such as concussions, often cause temporary confusion, dizziness, or headaches. While many people recover fully, others face long-term issues with memory and concentration.
Moderate or severe traumatic brain injuries are even more life-altering. They typically involve a prolonged loss of consciousness and serious damage to brain tissue. They also often require extensive medical care, rehabilitation, and long-term assistance.
Diffuse axonal injuries (DAI) are among the most severe types of brain injuries. They cause widespread nerve fiber damage in the brain and often lead to permanent disability or even death. Skull fractures, contusions, and hematomas also significantly increase medical complications and treatment needs.
How does a brain injury change the victim’s quality of life?
Brain injuries don’t just affect the body; they change how victims interact with the world and live their daily lives. Compensation should fully reflect these profound changes. Victims often struggle with cognitive challenges such as memory loss, difficulty concentrating, slowed thinking, and trouble communicating clearly. Simple tasks that were once easy can become overwhelming.
Physically, victims may experience chronic headaches, seizures, dizziness, coordination problems, and constant fatigue, which limit their ability to enjoy daily activities. Emotionally, brain injuries often trigger anxiety, depression, mood swings, or even social isolation. Relationships with family and friends may suffer greatly as a result.
Because these effects drastically reduce a person's quality of life, compensation must acknowledge these losses. Thorough medical documentation, psychological evaluations, and personal testimonies from loved ones help strengthen claims for these life-changing impacts.
What medical costs are covered by compensation?
Medical costs related to brain injuries can quickly add up to staggering amounts. Delaware allows victims to claim medical expenses, including emergency hospital visits, surgeries, diagnostic imaging such as MRIs or CT scans, and specialized medical procedures such as neurosurgery. Victims often require long-term rehabilitation, such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy. Neuropsychological therapies may also be necessary to help recover cognitive function or cope with emotional distress.
Medications, assistive devices like wheelchairs or mobility aids, and home modifications may also be needed. In severe cases, victims might require lifelong in-home care or placement in assisted living facilities. Experts such as neurologists and life-care planners play an important role in estimating future medical needs so victims receive sufficient compensation for all anticipated medical expenses related to their brain injury.
How do lost wages and future earnings factor into compensation?
A brain injury often means a lot of time away from work or permanent limitations on a victim’s career opportunities. Compensation typically covers lost income during recovery periods, but it also accounts for diminished future earning capacity. For example, if you were previously thriving in your career, you may no longer be able to return to your former role or achieve future promotions. Retraining or vocational rehabilitation costs, if needed, also become part of the claim.
What does pain and suffering include?
Beyond medical bills and lost income, Delaware law recognizes that brain injury victims deserve compensation for the significant pain, suffering, and emotional distress they experience. “Pain and suffering” includes chronic physical pain such as headaches or constant discomfort, emotional struggles such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, or depression, and profound personality or relationship changes that often accompany serious brain injuries.
Insurance companies and juries evaluate these damages carefully. That's why you need a knowledgeable Delaware car accident lawyer who can provide detailed evidence through medical records, psychological assessments, and personal testimony to influence the amount of compensation awarded.
Fault determination and compensation
Delaware follows the modified comparative negligence rule. This means you must be 50% or less responsible for the car accident to recover compensation. For example, if you're found 20% at fault, your total compensation will be reduced by 20%.
Insurance companies often take advantage of this rule to keep their costs down by reducing your denying your compensation. However, you can establish fault with evidence such as official police reports, eyewitness statements, crash scene footage, and testimony from accident reconstruction experts, which all help prove who was responsible for the collision. The clearer the evidence of another driver’s fault, the stronger the claim.
How a car accident lawyer can help after a brain injury
If you suffered a TBI in a car accident in Delaware, you need a law firm that will fight for your rights. The attorneys at Gill, Welsh, and Chamberlain, P.A. have seen the life-changing impact of head injuries and concussions on crash victims. Whether your injury resulted from a rear-end collision, a head-on crash, or another driver’s negligence, we're here to help you through the legal process. Don’t let insurance companies downplay your brain injury. Let us deal with them while you focus on your recovery.
With decades of experience since our founding in 1983, our firm has successfully represented car accident victims suffering from TBIs, concussions, and other serious injuries. We conduct thorough investigations, gather strong evidence, and build cases to fight for maximum compensation.
Time is critical in TBI cases, so don’t wait. Contact us today for a free consultation, and let us fight for the justice and financial compensation you deservve.