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How To Prepare Your Vehicle For A Car Accident
Everyone should have a fully stocked emergency car kit in their trunks all year round. You never know when you'll be stuck on Dupont with a flat tire or have your battery die on K. Being overly prepared for emergency situations is the best way to stay safe when an unexpected situation arises. Likewise, precaution is extremely valued during a collision. Therefore, having a secondary kit kept inside the car, preferably within arms reach of the driver, isn't only smart but could potentially be lifesaving.
Emergency Trunk Car Kit
Trunk kits should be stocked with emergency provisions that will help provide emergency maintenance for your car, protect you when stranded or be used to signal help. Although you may not feel they're completely necessary, especially during the age of cell phones, these objects can make life a lot easier by keeping you from being unprepared even when a situation catches you off guard.
- Tire gauge, spare tire, jack, screwdrivers, wrenches, and a hammer
Who To Blame for Your Child’s Birth Defect, Injury, or Trauma
Hundreds of healthy babies are born every day in Virginia; so it's understandable if you want to blame your doctor when your baby was born with an injury or medical problem. To better understand if anything-or anyone-is to blame for your child's ailments, you must first know the difference between a birth defect, a birth injury and birth trauma.
Birth Defects
Birth defects are present at birth but are generally caused during the fetus' development within the womb, by environmental, chromosomal or genetic factors.
Environmental factors that cause birth defects include:
- Consumption of drugs and/or alcohol
- Exposure to bacteria or viruses that cause disease (such as measles)
- External injury to the mother, preventing normal fetus development
Genetic and chromosomal factors will either deny a necessary gene or chromosome to the fetus causing an irregularity in development.
Defects present at birth can vary from physical abnormalities such as a cleft palate, club foot, or misshapen limbs to functional problems such as mental disorders, sensory problems, and even death. Although some of these defects can be detected through medical means before birth, the cause of the defects occur during pregnancy not during labor.
What Families Need To Know When Filing A Wrongful Death Lawsuit
When someone you love dies, it can seem like your world has come crashing down. Not only do people who have lost loved ones have to pick up the pieces and try to heal emotionally, but most people also have to deal with the financial burden of losing a family member. Although no one ever wants to have to deal with finances at a time like this, it is important to learn how to lessen the financial burden that a loss created in an effort to secure a family's financial future. This is why wrongful death lawsuits are filed.
Although families are often approached by hospitals, insurance companies, and other negligent parties to settle their claims after a wrongful death, it is important that families are aware of their rights to file a wrongful death lawsuit in order to collect the maximum compensation.
Who Can File a Wrongful Death Suit?
The following people are usually eligible to file a wrongful death claim against a negligent party:
- Spouse. When medical negligence claims the life of a patient, the patient's spouse has a right to bring a wrongful death lawsuit against the doctor, hospital, or wrongdoer. Sadly, the loss of a spouse doesn't just cause an emotional and relational loss, but it can create a financial burden due to the loss of income or loss of services around the house. This is why the surviving spouse needs to file a wrongful death suit and recover for these losses.
Virginia Car Accidents Can Cause Future Pain and Suffering
More than 100,000 car accidents a year happen in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Now imagine you have been in one of these accidents. After the collision, you immediately assess the damage-and thankfully, it appears that nothing is physically wrong with you. Your doctor says you're fine and that you can go home. However, three days later, you start to have horrible head and neck problems. You take pain relievers and shrug it off as nothing, but what if that pain is actually a severe injury that was hidden at the time of your recent car accident?
When you're injured in a car accident, your doctor generally treats the most apparent injuries first, such as cuts and broken bones. Once these injuries are patched up, he may do an overall physical exam to detect any other issues. If he is unable to find any more injuries, you're released and sent on your way. However, some injuries can take several days, weeks, or even months to show their symptoms, even though the initial injury began during the accident. The two most identifiable of these hidden injuries are whiplash and concussions.
An Early Injury Settlement May Save You More Than Just Time
Unless you're 10 years old and going on a field trip to discuss the Grey Ghost, the Fairfax Rifles, and the death of Captain Marr, no one likes to have to go to the court house. We all dread jury duty and having to go there to pay our realty taxes, so why would we voluntarily choose to be part of a trial if it wasn't necessary?
Well, most people wouldn't.
Settling Outside of Court
According to statistics compiled by the federal government, 96 percent of all personal injury claims in the United States are settled before they go to trial.
A big reason for this large percentage is the need to have claims resolved quickly without the hassle of a trial. However, just because it's common doesn't mean settling out of court is always the best decision. Depending on your situation, it may be a good-or bad-option for you.
Pros
- It's quicker. It can take months-if not years-of planning to get all necessary information and financial records together before a trial even begins, and then the trial itself may take weeks or months before the judge or jury comes to a decision.
Erb’s Palsy or Cerebral Palsy Virginia Birth Injury Lawyers
Erb's Palsy and Cerebral Palsy are both medical conditions with profound implications that can be caused by medical negligence at birth. While the conditions share certain similarities, they are in fact different and distinct medical conditions. Parents of children with either Erb's Palsy or Cerebral Palsy should know that their families may be entitled to compensation for either injury and that they should contact a Northern Virginia birth injury lawyer as soon as possible after a diagnosis has been made.
What is Erb's Palsy?
Erb's Palsy is a serious physical condition that often results from a difficult birth. For example, if the baby's head or shoulders are pulled in the wrong way or if the baby's shoulder gets stuck during birth then Erb's Palsy may result because the main nerves in the arm have been injured. As a result, the child may experience paralysis of the arm and require extensive rehabilitation or surgery. Additionally, the injury can affect growth of that arm and result in muscular and circulatory problems.
Economic Effects of Serious Personal Injury Accidents
When a serious injury occurs, such as a head injury in a car accident, a person isn't only affected physically but he or she is also hit hard financially. Medical expenses can quickly add up when they include hospital stays, surgical procedures, specialist visits, physical therapy, and rehabilitation. It's not uncommon for hospital and surgical bills to run a person thousands and thousands of dollars-even after insurance kicks in.
When a person arrives to a hospital by ambulance, undergoes expensive tests like an MRI, endures emergency surgery, and has a lengthy hospital stay, it can lead to a financial nightmare. And while all these medical bills are piling up, an injured person may also be suffering the economic effects of a job loss or job change.
Serious Injuries Lead to Serious Financial Effects
Because catastrophic injuries can lead to disabilities, disfigurement, paralysis, or a brain injury, an injured person may suffer a permanent job loss or a change in job position in which a person can work but isn't able to make the same amount of money. As a result of a job change or job loss, many injured victims are seriously affected financially. Some injury-related financial effects include:
Virginia Car Accident Survival Checklist
There are plenty of websites that will tell you what to do after you've been in a car accident. But what a lot of them don't tell you is that you can make the experience much easier if you take time to plan ahead. What's the key to coming out on top after a Virginia car accident? Be prepared.
- Carry an emergency kit in your car. By keeping a simple kit in your trunk, you should be able to handle a crisis or two on your own. Basics include a spare tire, flashlight, pens and markers, bungee cords, antifreeze / engine coolant and battery cables. Keep these in your car at all times-and know how to use them.
- Be aware of road safety rules. If your car needs assistance, move to the side of the road with your hazard lights on. If you are waiting for help, remain inside the vehicle. Don't risk others' lives (or your own) by remaining in traffic while waiting for help.
- Keep an accident checklist in your car. After an accident, drivers are often too panicked to get all the facts. Write a blank form ahead of time, including spaces for names, locations, date, time, license plate numbers, names of witnesses, and phone numbers, and keep the form in the glove compartment. These details will be invaluable later when you file your insurance claim.
UDrive, UText, UPay Policy Enforced
In honor of National Distracted Driving Awareness month, the state of New Jersey began a special effort to implement the nationwide "UDrive, Utext, UPay" campaign, starting on April 1. This campaign, which may be spreading to D.C. very soon, aims to help decrease the alarmingly frequent distracted driving accidents that continue to cause injuries and claim lives.
Rising accident rates-and soaring cellphone popularity-have led the federal government to start to offer grants to police departments to help with enforcement. To start, 60 New Jersey districts will tap into that federal grant in order to pay overtime to officers who volunteer to be part of a special distracted driving unit.
"Officers are going to be doing a hundred hours of this special detail: distracted drivers with cellphones," Englewood Cliffs Police Chief Michael Cioffi said. "Nothing else."
Engelwood police see the consequences of driving while on a cellphone everyday. One officer stated that it took a mile for one woman to notice him attempting to pull her over; even when the police vehicle's lights were flashing and the officer used a blaring megaphone, she was still too distracted by her phone to look in the rear-view mirror and notice she was being pulled over.
Fairfax P.D. Begins Distracted Driving Awareness Training
Distracted driving in Fairfax has steadily grown over the past few years, causing an alarmingly high number of accidents. In the past three years, over 3,350 accidents attributed to driver distraction have occurred throughout the county. As a result, the Fairfax County Police Department decided to put additional focus on distracted driving awareness by holding its first ever driver distraction training session.
Training Focus
The main purpose of the seminar was to raise awareness about the consequences of driving while texting, talking on the phone, or using electronic devices. In order to hear a firsthand account of distracted driving devastation, the department asked a local mother, Patty Kruszewski, to speak about the fatal distraction accident that killed her daughter, Lanie. Lanie was bicycling down River Road when an SUV struck her, dragged her 40 feet, and continued down the road. Investigations later determined that the driver, Elias Webb, was distracted while talking on his cell phone and never noticed Lanie or her bike.
703-591-0067
10513 Judicial Drive, Suite 200, Fairfax, VA 22030
703-591-0067
From our office in Fairfax, Shevlin Smith, P.C. serves clients throughout Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., including Alexandria, Annandale, Arlington, Ashburn, Burke, Centreville, Dale City, Fair Oaks, Leesburg, Manassas, McLean, Oakton, Reston, Springfield, and Woodbridge, as well as Fairfax County, Arlington County, Fauquier County, Loudoun County, and Prince William County.
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