Nerve Damage from a Car Accident: What to Know

Nerve damage from a car accident can impact your life more than you realize. In a collision with another vehicle, you suffer from pressure, stretching, bending, potentially even severing. Nerve damage is just one of the possible injuries a victim might suffer. 

However, it’s one people rarely consider. Moreover, it can have a major impact on your life. In some cases, it prevents people from returning to work. For more extreme cases, people have a hard time taking care of themselves or engaging in their favorite hobbies. 

If you sustained nerve damage in an auto accident, it’s important to explore your legal options. Below, we look at what people might expect and how to attain the compensation you deserve. 

Understanding What Compensation to Pursue

After you suffer nerve damage in a car accident, you may deserve damages for your injury. However, this might require a clearer understanding of what to expect. 

Before you accept a settlement offer, it’s important to examine your current and future costs. Now, no car accident lawyer can guarantee an exact number in terms of compensation. Still, your attorney should work with you to break down your losses and give you an estimate of what to demand in your claim. 

Here are a few things to consider as you try to estimate your potential settlement. 

Medical Expenses

Oftentimes, nerve damage leads to considerable, mounting medical expenses. Some victims suffer ongoing pain that they need to have resolved quickly. Unfortunately, this pain can lead to dramatic limitations. 

As you work with your doctor, it’s possible to resolve many of the symptoms. However, it varies widely from case to case. 

For instance, a herniated disc might press on a nerve, signaling numbness, weakness, pain, or a tingling sensation. This might require surgery to address your symptoms, which dramatically increases medical bills. 

Be sure to take a close look at all of your relevant medical bills after the accident. Ask yourselves these questions. 

• Did you need emergency medical care? 
• With nerve damage from a car accident, did you need immediate treatment or pain medication?
• Did your treatment involve physical therapy?
• Was there a surgery to address your condition?

Lost Income

In many cases, nerve damage from a car accident has a significant impact on a person’s ability to work. Weakness and numbness in the hands from nerve damage makes it difficult to lift heavy objects, perform physical labor, or sit at a computer or desk all day. In the legs, nerve damage leaves people unstable or wobbly as they move. 

Additionally, it can lead to chronic pain from normal activity. For instance, a herniated disc makes it difficult to sit at a desk for a long period of time. 

Too often, victims of nerve damage from a car accident miss significant periods of work. 

• Immediately after the collision 
• Recovery periods
• Doctor and physical therapy appointments 

For many people, a long hospital stay leaves them with a major gap in their income. This is especially true for workplaces without short-term disability coverage.

Then, you try to go back to work. Often, people assume this brings their income back to its normal level. However, many find that nerve damage prevents them from working in the same way they did before.  

Follow-up appointments or different treatments cause them to miss additional time. Pain spikes might make some days harder than others, leading to more time off. In many cases, lost income mounts up over time. 

When you partner with an attorney, you have an advocate to examine your lost income. This has the potential to build upon your car accident claim. 

Pain & Suffering

Pain and suffering is one of those elements of a claim that’s difficult to tack down. However, nerve damage often makes like quite frustrating. 

People struggle with chronic pain. Weakness in limbs makes it harder to accomplish things easily done before. Moreover, it eats away at the things that brought people joy in the past. 

All of this stems from nerve damage from a car accident, leading to immense suffering in different areas of your life. When you speak with your lawyer, talk to them about these changes in your life. 

• Missed opportunities, hobbies, activities
• Lost time with family and friends
• Reduced enjoyment of your life
• Lost relationships

What to Do When You Suffer Nerve Damage From a Car Accident

Once you suffer nerve damage from a car accident, it’s common for the liable person’s insurance company to reach out with an offer. Here’s what happens. 

Lowball Settlement Offer

Too often, insurance companies reach out with a lowball offer. They put pressure on you to accept it quickly. However, you never have to accept an immediate settlement offer. 

Tell them that you need time to consider their offer. 

Contact an Attorney

After a car accident, you need an advocate on your side. Your attorney represents your best interests. From advice and guidance to claim management, they make the process less of a burden on you. 

Moreover, they prepare a counteroffer that encompasses your damages and fight for the compensation you deserve.