Atlanta Injury Attorneys Blog

The most common serious injury suffered by the victim of an auto, truck, boat, motorcycle or other vehicle accident in Georgia is a back or spinal cord injury.

Spinal cord injuries are extremely serious and require immediate medical attention. The symptoms depend on the severity and location of the trauma. A "complete spinal cord injury" is defined as an injury where the nerves are not functional at any point below the injury, where with a "partial spinal cord injury" there is some nerve function below the injury.

The human body has 24 movable vertebrae: 7 cervical, 12 thoracic and 5 lumbar. The spinal nerves wind through the spinal canal. The cervical vertebrae are in the area of the neck, the thoracic center around the upper back and the lumbar are associated with the lower back. The vertebrae are numbered in sequential order with #1 at the top, so C1 would be the top cervical vertebra and C7 the bottom cervical vertebra and the one above T1. An injury occurring higher up the spinal cord results in relatively more paralysis than one affecting the lower vertebrae.

A complete spinal cord injury in the C1 region is considered a catastrophic spinal injury and could affect a victim's breathing and result in quardraplegia, paralysis of all limbs. A compete injury of the thoracic or lumbar vertebrae might result in paraplegia, or paralysis of the arms or legs. Other symptoms of spinal cord injuries could include: stiffness or spasticity of the affected arms or legs, loss of bowel or bladder control and sexual dysfunction.

Treatment of the injury for spinal cord usually consists of 3 distinct phases:

1. Stabilization of the injury and minimization of further injury to the spinal cord;

2. Rehabilitation of the injury so that the patient can function at maximum mobility;

3. Coping with the injury and the life changes associated with any permanent impairments.

More than 10,000 American suffer serious spinal injuries each year. Most of these occur in automobile wrecks and trucking accidents. Motorcycle accidents and boating crashes are other common causes. If you are injured in an accident, even if you don't necessarily feel seriously hurt, seek medical attention immediately. If the injury is a complete spinal cord injury, you will likely have no choice. However, even with a partial spine injury, wait for the ambulance. Adrenaline may cause you to feel stronger and less injured than you really are. You can make the injury worse if you don't stop moving immediately.

I represented a man with a partial spinal injury who exacerbated the injury by his unrestrained movement after the fact. Not only was he more severely injured than he should have been, but he also could not seek damages for the exacerbation caused by his post-accident movement, as it was not caused directly by the wreck. Don't let this happen to you. And, by the way, wear your seatbelt in your vehicle and your helmet on your motorcycle because a severe head or brain injury is not just devastating, it's likely fatal.

Hire a lawyer who is experienced in cases involving spinal cord and head injuries. The medical details can be confusing, and you don't your lawyer to learn on the job when so much is at stake.

The most common serious injury in a vehicle accident is a back or neck injury. With so many cars in Atlanta, Gwinnett County and the surrounding areas, I have seen my share of clients with major back and neck pain. Everyone understands that back injuries are serious. Tragically, the effects of a spinal cord injury are immediate obvious. Spinal cord injuries that result in paralysis are catastrophic and devastating. But, what about serious back injuries that are not obvious at the time of an auto accident, truck wreck or motorcycle crash? Herniated discs, slipped discs, ruptured discs and bulging disks are just those types of injuries. These may not be catastrophic injuries, but they are often permanent injuries affecting the victim for the rest of his or her life.

Disc injuries are almost never diagnosed on a trip to an emergency room. In fact they cannot be detected with an X-ray, CT scan or the other types of diagnostic equipment typically at a hospital ER. Instead, if an accident victim complains about a back or neck injury, and there is no bone fracture, the ER doctor will typically advise a patient to follow up with an orthopedic doctor if the pain persists. If the patient does so, the orthopedic doctor will typically advise the patient to seek physical therapy or massage therapy. Only after all conservative measures are exhausted, will a doctor order a magnetic resonance image (MRI) of the affected area. Sometimes, he will only do so at the insistence of the patient. MRIs can be expensive, and insurance companies do not want to pay for them.

The MRI will show the orthopedist the state of the cartilaginous discs in between the spinal vertebrae. These discs are filled with fluid and allow the spine to bend and twist, allowing normal torso movement. When a bulging disc is suffered, the disc has swelled or is otherwise "bulging" in one area relative to the rest of the disc. More seriously, a disc can become herniated or ruptured, and all that spinal fluid that keeps the disc hydrated can leak out. The disc can then become brittle and lose its elasticity. Unfortunately, this fluid cannot be put back in, and the disc cannot heal or become whole again.

Herniated discs are very serious injuries, and anyone who has suffered a herniated disc in an accident that was caused by someone else should seek the services of an excellent back and spine injury attorney. Surgical options are typically limited and imperfect for disc injuries. The doctor could perform a discectomy, where he or she removes the shredded disc. Alternatively, the doctor may "fuse" several vertebrae together. Obviously, fusing vertebrae together does not result in the type of mobility one enjoyed before this procedure. There is simply not a lot that can be done to make the patient the way they were before. After surgery, a victim of a herniated or ruptured disc may still suffer debilitating pain. This is one reason people get addicted to pain medications.

Perhaps medical science will advance to the point that herniated or ruptured discs can be made perfect by surgical procedure. Until that day comes, one needs to make sure that they are fully compensated for their future medical costs, pain and suffering.

I am asked this question all the time in my practice by people who have been seriously injured in an auto accident, truck accident or motorcycle accident. After all, a personal injury or wrongful death wreck case is not really worth pursuing unless the offending driver had insurance, right? Well, unless the person that hit you is really wealthy, that's right. Of course, if that tortfeasor was wealthy, he or she would probably have insurance. You are much more likely to be hit by a poor person or be a victim of a drunk driver without insurance. Why is that so? Think about it. I could get into the socio-economics of that debate, but I have limited space here. Here's what to do if you want to find out if the other driver or drivers in your accident had auto insurance.

First, go to the Georgia Motor Vehicle Accident Report. A Georgia accident report has conspicuous blanks for the insurance information of all parties. Police officers are required to obtain insurance for both drivers in a wreck, and I have found they do a very good job. Making sure all the parties have the insurance information of the others is really the main point of the accident report process. Contrary to popular belief, it is not to assign blame. With the insurance info in the hands of the parties, the officer and his department can rely on the insurance companies to sort out the details while they get back to protecting and serving. It is against Georgia law to drive without insurance, and an officer can and will arrest a driver who he discovers does not have insurance at the scene of a wreck.

Second, if the Georgia accident report does not exist or does not reveal the insurance company, you have the right to ask the other driver to give you his insurance information. The Official Code of Georgia § 33-3-28 (a)(2) requires an insured to disclose the name of his or her insurer within thirty (30) days of receiving a written request for that information from the claimant. If you read the statute, however, you will discover that it is relatively toothless. There are no useful penalties for failure to comply. You could sue the other driver, but you might as well sue him for your injuries.

Third, you can try the Georgia Department of Revenue - Motor Vehicle Division - (404) 362-6500. This office is the official repository for this information in Georgia. However, you need the vehicle identification number of other driver's car or truck.

Fourth, you can go to an experienced Georgia personal injury attorney. If you have a case the lawyer will accept, he will start by making a demand pursuant to Official Code of Georgia § 33-3-28 (a)(2). If all else fails, he or she can just file suit. The courts will require the surrender of the insurance information. In many cases, there are not one but several policies that can pay your claim. Many times this insurance is "stackable" meaning that you could obtain the policy limits of several policies, thereby increasing the total recovery.

If a Georgia Auto Accident or truck accident results in the death of a driver, passenger or bystander, a Georgia Motor Vehicle Accident Report is drafted by the investigating police officer, just like for any other accident. However, when a fatality is involved, Georgia law requires that a supplemental accident report be drafted by specially trained officers. Sometimes these officers work for police departments, but rural areas and small cities may not possess the resources to staff a specially trained team. Usually, if a municipality does not have appropriate personnel, then the county will provide a team. If the county does not have a team, then another local jurisdiction can provide a team. If no local officers are qualified, then the Georgia State Patrol will investigate and draft the fatality accident report supplement.

What do these specially trained officers do? Well, they perform a complete forensic investigation, including but not limited to: a) an evaluation of the collision dynamics; b) a mechanical inspection of the vehicles; c) a more thorough identification and interview process for drivers, passengers and witnesses; d) speed calculations; e) time and distance studies; f) crash data downloads from on board vehicle computers on tractor trailer rigs that have been involved in serious accidents; and g) computer animations. If you have ever driven in metro Atlanta or Gwinnett, Cobb or Dekalb Counties near major interstates, you know that if an accident has resulted in a death, that the entire road can be shut down for hours. These teams do their jobs carefully, regardless of the ambient chaos around them.

The most highly trained of these Georgia accident investigation teams are the Specialized Collision Reconstruction Teams of the Georgia State Patrol. SCRT units were authorized in 1997 after the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia demanded greater emphasis be placed on forensic examinations so that serious violators of Georgia's traffic laws could be prosecuted and so Georgia DUI accident victims could obtain justice. SCRT officers receive over 1100 hours of comprehensive training in traffic accident investigation and reconstruction. Since January 1998, the SCRT units have conducted over 2000 fatal crash investigations. There are 5 SCRT teams in Georgia, spread out among the state so that they can cover all regions of Georgia quickly and efficiently.

Georgia Accident Reports and supplements for fatal car or truck accidents can be difficult to make sense of. You should contact an experienced Georgia wrongful death attorney to obtain copies and discuss the contents with the investigating officers. The reports, including any SCRT Reports, should be available through the Georgia Open Records Act.

Like any accident report, time is of the essence when mistakes are made. Mistakes can become "facts" if not corrected. Be diligent in obtaining and reviewing a report should a tragedy occur.

As a Metro Atlanta car crash lawyer, I have followed the national debate on cell phones and driving with great interest. This month, a coalition of top state highway safety officials took a bold step suggesting that they have as well. The Governors Highway Safety Association is a group of leaders of state highway agencies -- in Georgia, that's the Governor's Office of Highway Safety. On Aug. 31, the group passed a new policy calling for a ban on texting and driving in every state, calling the practice a distraction and a serious safety problem. The announcement was part of the GHSA's annual meeting, held Aug. 31-Sept. 2 here in Georgia, in Savannah.

The policy is part of a growing momentum among safety experts and some regulators to limit what drivers do with their phones. As the GHSA's press release notes, its announcement follows the release of a study by the Virginia Tech Traffic Institute, which placed cameras in the cabs of long-haul trucks to determine what behaviors led to a crash or a near-crash. The hair-raising result: Drivers who texted took their eyes off the road for an average of five seconds, which is enough time for a large truck traveling at highway speeds to travel the length of a football field. The study concluded that drivers increase their chances of having or nearly having a serious tractor-trailer accident by 23 times when they text. The GHSA also said it looked forward to the results of a study by the federal Department of Transportation investigating effective enforcement strategies.

Meanwhile, Congress has introduced legislation that would tie a ban on texting and driving to federal highway funding, much as it once did for Georgia drunk driving laws. And on Sept. 30, the federal Secretary of Transportation will hold a summit on distracted driving, including but not limited to texting while driving. As a Georgia auto accident attorney, I am pleased that distracted driving is getting attention at the highest levels of our nation's government. A previous study by the Virginia Tech institute found that distracted driving was a major cause of crashes and near-crashes -- almost as common as speeding. It found that anything that took the driver's eyes off the road for two seconds or more could substantially raise the chance of a crash, including cell phones, but also sleepiness, rubbernecking, eating, makeup or shaving and reaching for objects inside the vehicle.

Continue reading "State Traffic Safety Experts Call for National Ban on Texting and Driving at Georgia Meeting" »

As a Gwinnett County auto accident lawyer, I was disturbed to read a recent reminder that we are all only as safe as the actions of the drivers around us. That point was driven home by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Aug. 31, reporting on an accident that killed a Metro Atlanta man sitting in his own living room with his family. According to the article, George Michael Bryant was killed when a driver in a speeding Lincoln Navigator SUV rammed into the side of his Douglasville home, injuring other family members and creating a huge hole in one wall. The driver, William Steward of Douglas County, was later charged with vehicular homicide, two counts of injuries by vehicle, and driving under the influence of alcohol.

According to the article, Bryant was watching a movie with his wife, their daughter and two grandchildren just before the accident. In addition to causing his death, the accident sent his wife, Joyce Bryant, and granddaughter, nine-year-old Aylisha Walters, to the hospital. Walters was in fair condition Aug. 31, while Joyce Bryant was expected to be released. Other family members were treated and released. Authorities say Steward was traveling at high speed when he hit the home, hitting mailboxes, bushes and a parked car on the way. Neighbors said drivers often speed on their stretch of road and sometimes lose control when rounding a nearby corner. However, WSBTV.com later reported that Steward had a blood-alcohol content of 0.19, more than twice the legal limit in Georgia, making this a serious Metro Atlanta drunk driving accident.

As a Metro Atlanta car crash attorney, I hope this accident prompts action to control speeding on this road, if it is the problem that the neighbors say it is. Speeding is illegal for a reason: Speed makes it more difficult to control vehicles and increases the force a vehicle brings to an accident, which means greater destruction and often more serious injuries for the people who are hit. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, speeding was a contributing factor in 31% of all fatal motor vehicle crashes in 2007, costing 13,040 lives and $40.4 billion. And statistics show that driving drunk correlates with speeding. In 2007, 40% of legally drunk (BAC of 0.08%) drivers involved in fatal crashes were speeding, while only 15 percent of sober drivers were speeding.

Continue reading "Man Crashes SUV Into Douglas County Home Killing Grandfather and Injuring Family" »

A Metro Atlanta boating accident left a young woman dead from severe injuries, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Aug. 27. According to the newspaper, Zayna Smith was actually being pulled in an inner tube behind the boat when the accident happened -- the third such accident I've noted this summer as a Georgia boating accident attorney. Smith, of Roswell, died Aug. 26 at Atlanta Medical Center, the newspaper said.

The accident took place on Lake Allatoona on the afternoon of Aug. 25. The AJC reported that Christopher Girous was pulling Smith in an inner tube behind the boat when the tube hit some rocks. The collision threw her from the tube and head-first into more rocks, according to a spokesman for the Cherokee County Fire Department, sustaining severe trauma to her head and her lower extremities. Smith was unresponsive when help arrived, the article said, and had to be rescued by boat before she could be put into an ambulance and taken to the hospital for treatment. Girous, 53, is charged with reckless operation of a watercraft and pulling someone not wearing a life jacket.

As I noted, this is at least the third Georgia accident this summer that hurt people pulled on inner tubes. Prior accidents sent two teenaged boys from South Georgia and three 10- and 11-year-old girls from west Georgia to hospitals. As a Metro Atlanta boating accident lawyer, I believe inner tubing is safe -- but I also know boating safety experts tell boaters to take extra care when doing it. The boating safety manual put out by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources dedicates an entire chapter of its boating manual to safety issues surrounding inner tubers, water skiers and others pulled behind the boat. Its cautions include warnings that boat operators should keep the towed person -- especially inner tubers, who don't have much control over their direction -- well away from hazards.

Continue reading "Boating Accident Injuries Kill Roswell Woman Tubing on Lake Allatoona" »

A recent story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about a caught my eye as a Gwinnett County drunk driving crash lawyer. The AJC reported Aug. 25 that authorities believe Natasha Searcy, 22, was driving drunk when she hit a car carrying a Metro Atlanta family. The head-on crash killed Ashley Ingalsbe, 25 and her son Luke Ingalsbe, 4. It also injured another son, two-year-old Jacob Ingalsbe, and Ashley Ingalsbe's boyfriend, Thomas Vinnacombe, 24. Searcy was not seriously injured, but she is being held on suicide watch at Douglas County jail.

The accident happened at 5:45 in the morning of Aug. 24 on Skyview Drive, the newspaper said. Searcy allegedly crossed the center line of the road and hit Ingalsbe's car head-on. The crash killed Luke Ingalsbe instantly and his mother later in the day. Jacob Ingalsbe was treated and released from WellStar Cobb Hospital, but Vinnacombe was more seriously injured. His aunt, Amy Thomas, told the newspaper that he may need surgery for broken ribs and an injury to his spleen. Searcy was charged with vehicular homicide, DUI, driving without insurance and failure to stay in her lane. She has already appeared in court, where she was denied bail.

My heart goes out to these victims and their families. Losing loved ones unexpectedly is always a tragedy, but losing them to an apparent drunk driver is an extremely preventable tragedy. By now, high schoolers are routinely taught that drinking and driving poses a serious risk to themselves and everyone around them -- yet Metro Atlanta intoxicated driving lawyers like me continue to see more cases. Drunk driving causes wrongful deaths and catastrophic injuries, including head and spinal injuries that can cause lifelong disabilities. Under those circumstances, it's difficult to see the choice to drive while intoxicated as anything other than a deliberate, intentional choice made without consideration for the people who may cross the driver's path.

Continue reading "Driver Held for Alleged DUI Crash That Killed Mother and Child and Injured Two Others" »