What Can I Include in a Truck Accident Claim?

While all vehicle collisions are scary, one involving a large semi-truck, big rig, or commercial truck is way more traumatizing and dangerous than those with smaller passenger vehicles. Given the fact that the average eighteen-wheeler weighs more than 43 tons, it’s scary even to imagine what might happen when an accident occurs. We will help you with What Can I Include in a Truck Accident Claim. Whether it’s just a fender bender or an accident that causes devastating damage, it can result in significant life-altering catastrophic injuries. This is because even when the truck’s speed is slow, the force is usually a lot more than that from an average vehicle, which means it’s usually the car that takes the brunt! 

That being said, imagine the impact on the bodies of your loved ones who might have suffered harm in an unfortunate event involving a truck collision. Apart from the physical toll, it inflicts on the body, the emotional scars, financial losses, and medical expenses may cause the victim to feel blind-sided. Such injuries reshape lives and force people to remain out of work for weeks, sometimes months.  

Fortunately, victims do have some recourse; all they require is the immediate help of a personal injury lawyer who can help get them their rightly deserved compensation from the parties at fault. 

Sometimes, victims might not know what to include in the truck accident claim. The expert personal injury attorneys at Hare | Wynn, Newell & Newton have helped compile a round-up of things to include in your claims. Here’s all you need to know. 

Medical Expenses

A significant number of people don’t realize how expensive even minor injuries can be in the long run. Even if, fortunately, the victim doesn’t require extensive surgery, a broken bone can cost more than $2,800 on average. 

In case the injury is serious, such as with victims who face spinal cord injuries, they may face costs that total over $1.2 million per annum. Victims who suffer a minor decrease in motor functions due to a spinal cord injury may also need to pay an extra $48,000 per year on average on medical care.

While the cost of caring for such patients mainly depends on the extent of the injury, an estimate reveals that caring for victims of traumatic brain injury costs between $650,000 to $1,900,000 on average during the patient’s lifetime. 

Some victims also require limb amputation, the basic cost of which is between $28,000 and $63,000, and this doesn’t include the expenses of physical therapy or other recovery costs. If the victim needs a prosthetic, a relatively good quality limb can cost more than $47,000 on average! 

While bills add up fast after the accident, sometimes, victims forget to file minor bills that are relevant to the claims. Here are a few examples of expenses associated with accidental claims. 

Ambulance

Some states have an ambulance transportation fee as much as $1,300; while the victim may pay the transport fee once, some injuries deem future ambulance rides necessary, such as a transfer to a rehab facility, another hospital, or a long-term care facility. 

ER Bill

If the victim is taken to the emergency room after the accident, they may have undergone several extensive and expensive scans and tests. 

Medical Equipment

The victim may need durable equipment to restore mobility or for assistance in everyday tasks. This might include wheelchairs, crutches, specialized orthodontic headgears, or prosthetics after an amputation. 

Hospitalization 

The victim might need to spend an average of $6,000 to survive each day in an ICU with specialized equipment, proper supervision, multiple surgeries, etc., which increases the typical cost of hospitalization. 

Changes To Victims Home To Accommodate Injuries 

Serious injuries may require appropriate alteration and modifications to a victim’s home or vehicle to enable them to live comfortably after the accident. This can include ramps for victims who are restricted to wheelchairs, special beds, grab bars for bathrooms, and more. 

Lost Income 

Severe injuries substantially affect the victim’s income – not only in terms of the time they have to spend in recovery, but also the income they lose as a result of the devastating accident. Here are some points to consider when claiming lost income. 

• Determine the time it may take them to return to work; consider the time healthcare workers think they’ll need to recover from the injury and the factors that prevent them from returning to work.
• If the injury was severe and requires extensive physical therapy, or they need to miss work or other engagements that required the victim’s time to meet specialists, they can add all of this, especially if they’ve exhausted all the sick leaves granted by their employer. 

Lost Earning Potential 

Sometimes, severe injuries can alter a person’s abilities, restricting them from ever returning to work in their former capacity. This is especially applicable for people who work at jobs that require highly intensive laboring, such as working at a warehouse. 

On the other hand, some injuries also might rob victims of their ability to perform jobs that require creativity. Here’s what can be included in a lost earning potential claim: 

• A reliable source of funds until the victim can get back on their feet
• Funds if the victim requires to go back to school or acquire certifications in a different profession 
• The tools needed to search for a job, including clothes, conveyance, and other things that make it easier for the victim to obtain employment in a new company or position. 

Emotional Pain And Suffering 

Medical expenses cannot account for the emotional pain and suffering the victim goes through due to the injuries. A professional personal injury lawyer can help determine all the factors that can be included in the claim, such as: 

• Emotional difficulty faced by the victim, which can include PTSD or other psychological issues that limit the activities of the victim equally and sometimes more than the physical injuries. 
• Trauma can cause inability in victims or hesitation to participate in activities they once loved. If the victim loved to write, deeply suffered injuries might make them lose the creative flair, or dancers might need to forgo their dancing passion if they underwent an amputation.