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How Burn & Brain Injury Cases are Different


Overview

Suffering any injury on or offshore can be devastating for individuals and for their families. Burn injuries and brain injuries can be particularly difficult since they require more specialists than other injuries might. Burn and brain injury victims might need to see:

  • neuroradiologists, doctors who interpret and understand MRIs and CT scans
  • neuropsychologists, specialists who determine how an injury might affect mental abilities
  • psychiatrists, professionals that help injured workers cope with mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, PTSD
  • ophthalmologists, doctors who focus on vision problems that arise from brain injuries
  • among others

Why it Matters

In the context of filing maritime injury cases, the more serious the injury, the more experts and doctors that will be needed to determine

  • how bad your injury is
  • how much it’ll cost to get you “better”
  • how much your medical expenses will cost in the future
  • what kind of medical tests and procedures you need
  • and more

Once all this has been added up, you’ll have a better idea of how much your company should compensate you for an injury. When it comes to filing a maritime injury claim, the attorney you hire should know what doctors and specialists you’ll need to see for your specific injury.

Video Transcript

0:07 Hello.  In this video, I want to talk about maritime injuries that involve extremely serious burn injuries or brain injuries.

0:15 Our office has handled many of these types of cases over the years, and they truly are extraordinarily sad cases, usually, but it is very meaningful to be involved with them and to help our clients in that respect.

0:27 There are a couple of issues that I want to talk about that’ll give you something to think about, especially three things.

0:32 The first is that typically in burn injury cases and when maritime workers have suffered brain injuries, there are a lot of doctors involved that are very specialized.  When you have a back injury or a neck injury you’ll have an orthopedic or a neurosurgeon. Most attorneys who handle injury cases will know how to deal with those types of doctors.

0:52 When you get into burn injuries, and especially brain injuries, you will have very, very specialized medical fields that typically we will hire for our clients as experts in the cases.

1:05 These will include neuro-radiologists, these are specialized people who read films to talk about the extent of damage that a person’s brain has suffered.

1:15 You’ll typically have neuropsychologists.  These are experts who do mental testing in reading and writing to figure out the types of disabilities that people who have suffered brain injuries now have.

1:26 With burn victims, you’ll typically have plastic surgeons involved.

1:31 There will be issues as to usually psychological issues.  Unfortunately, a lot of our past clients have seen psychiatrists because you do get into some very sad injuries.

1:42 But it’s important to know that when you do have these types of injuries, your attorney is going to have to know the specialized fields of medicine which are necessary.

1:51 A lot of times vision problems occur with brain injury victims, and so they end up dealing with neuro-ophthalmologists.  These are again just some of the examples of the plethora of doctors who are necessary when you have serious injuries like that.

2:05 A second thing to understand when you have burn injuries or brain injuries as a maritime worker is that your attorney really does have to be good at putting together a whole damage model for you.

2:17 What I mean by that is, with brain injuries and burn injuries, there’s usually life care plans provided, and this entails all the doctors getting together with a coordinated life care planner, who’s actually an individual who plays this role, and he figures out with the doctors the laundry list of medical expenses and treatment that may be needed in the future.

2:40 A lot of time with people who have some problems thinking and memory problems after injuries, this may include care around the house, it could even include care at a facility for extended periods of time.

2:52 All of that adds up to money that, under the law, you should be compensated for if the company or a defendant is at fault.  There’s a little nuance and trick to this because those medical amounts then have to be adjusted for future inflation,

3:08 and because we all know medical amounts increase, increase over time, there’s an economist that comes in, who’s very specialized at this, and he will figure out if it’s a $2 million medical bill today, over the person’s next, you know, 15 or 20 years of his life span, what does that mean as time goes on and on?

3:29 And sometimes you can see that number double or triple or even, depending upon how old or how young the victim is.  So keep in mind that when you’re figuring out what all this has cost you, there are some specialized ways to do this in order to really get what you deserve.


Burn injuries:

Brain Injuries:

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