You were on your way to work that morning, and never saw him blow past the stop sign without ever slowing down.
1. You can’t believe he destroyed your car.
2. You can’t believe you had to be removed from your car with the “Jaws of Life” that the fire department uses to open crushed cars. After being taken out on a backboard and having your head, neck and body strapped to the board and placed onto a stretcher in the ambulance, you still can’t believe you had to go to the emergency room.
3. You can’t believe that your clothes had to be cut off of you in the emergency room, then had your entire body x-rayed and sent for CT scan. You can’t believe that you needed emergency surgery to fix the bones in your thigh-bone, also known as the femur, and your arm. When you woke up you learned that the surgeons had to put in a titanium rod into your leg with steel plates, surgical screws and pins to hold the bones together.
4. You can’t believe that the surgeon told you your leg will be one inch shorter than the other, and that you’ll have to learn to walk again and need rehabilitation for about three weeks after getting out of the hospital in a week.
5. You can’t believe that you’ll be out of work, at a minimum, for 5 weeks, and your disability insurance won’t even kick in unless you’re out of work for 9 weeks continually. Your can’t believe that your boss in the factory where you work stopped paying you your salary after two weeks, and now you have no income. Your wife does not work and you have two young kids in elementary school.
6. You can’t believe that the bone in your leg is not healing properly and the surgeon tells you that you will need another surgery in two months. You can’t sleep at night because the cast on your arm requires you to sleep only on one side and the pain in your leg requires you to take narcotic pain medication on a regular basis. Your kids cannot understand why you can’t play with them or pick them up from school since you are now home during the day. You can’t believe how difficult it is to go up and down your stairs when you have a cast on your leg and also on your arm. Going to the bathroom is a 15 minute ordeal as is getting dressed in the morning. Brushing your teeth and hair with your other hand is confusing and frustrating. Spending quality time with your wife is physically impossible, and the agony of figuring out how you’ll survive without an income is horribly stressful.
In New York, an injured victim must be compensated for their medical expenses both in the past and in the future, their lost earnings, their lost future income, their pain and the suffering it caused to both the victim and their spouse, as well as any lost opportunities he would have had, had the accident not happened. When a wrongdoer causes an accident that causes harm, he incurs a debt that must be repaid. Often, with a seriously injured victim, the cost to repay that debt is significant.
If an accident happens, call Gerry Oginski, an experienced New York personal injury and accident attorney, to make sure that your rights and ability to obtain proper compensation is protected. Gerry can be reached through his website: http://www.oginski-law.com or you can call Gerry personally at 516-487-8207. For more information, take a look at Gerry’s educational video tips on his website as well as hundreds of free reports about accidents, wrongful death and medical malpractice in New York.
