Car Accident Attorney Orange County
If you are a resident of Orange County and have recently suffered a whiplash injury caused by a car accident you have been involved in, you may contact and consult a Car Accident Attorney in Orange County in order to exactly know what your rights are, before you sign any settlement agreement with any insurance company. This attorney will not only be able to tell you what your legal rights are but also what compensation you should be entitled to. You have a period of 3 years from the date of the injury in which to bring proceedings to court. If you fail to bring your whiplash compensation claim to the courts within this time you will have forfeited your right to make a claim.
What is Whiplash?
Whiplash is the most common injury resulting from car accidents. It hurls your head violently backward (hyperextension) and forward (hyperflexion)- injuring your neck. The injury is worse if the neck was turned to the side at the time of the accident. Whiplash can cause injury to intervertebral joints, discs, and ligaments, cervical muscles, and nerves. It is often encountered along with concussions and more serious injury. The effects of whiplash can be short term or lifelong, and can leave the neck forever vulnerable to injury. The injury can also extend to shoulders and arms.
Having this injury can also leads to long-term disability in 10% of people injured in car accidents. Approximately 1,000,000 people are exposed to whiplash injury in the U.S. every year. Nearly 25% of these cases result in chronic pain and disability. 1 in 7 whiplash victims will still have significant pain more than 3 years after the accident.
Most patients with whiplash recover in a few weeks or at most, a few months, but 15 to 20% of people develop chronic pain. Whiplash is not a trivial problem, because once it has occurred, only 70% have recovered completely by one year and only 82% have recovered completely by two years. In addition to neck pain, there are many symptoms associated with the whiplash syndrome and include sleep problems, poor concentration and memory, blurry vision, ringing in the ears, fatigue, and weakness.
The treatment for whiplash syndromes depends on the stage and degree of the problem and which structures have been injured. In addition to soft tissue injury, pain that persists after four to six months is usually due to injury to the facet joints, one or more discs, or both. The diagnosis can usually be made by injections, MRI, and X-rays. Treatment is usually successful, but requires physical therapy, injections, and occasionally surgery.
Suffering a whiplash injury can be a painful and difficult experience, both physically and financially. Severe whiplash injury may prevent you from working and doing normal tasks like driving and taking the kids to school. Recovering from a whiplash injury usually takes between 3 to 6 months but can be much longer if the injury is severe.
With ever increasing traffic on our roads, more and more accidents occur where whiplash injury happens. Any accident involving the neck and shoulders can be painful and should be compensated for.
How Can I Get The Right Compensation for this Injury?
The answer is very simple: contact a Car Accident Attorney in Orange County who will not only become your legal advisor – but will take care of all the process of claiming your accident compensation.
