A spinal cord injury can change how you move, work, and manage everyday life. You may be facing surgery, rehabilitation, time away from work, and uncertainty about what your recovery will look like.
An Alpharetta personal injury lawyer can help you understand your options when someone else may be responsible for an injury with long-term effects.
If you need a spinal cord injury lawyer in Alpharetta, Van Sant Law can investigate what happened and build a claim around your current and future losses. Founder David M. Van Sant previously worked in insurance defense, giving our team insight into how insurers assess serious injury claims.
How an Alpharetta Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer Can Help
A spinal cord injury claim needs to show more than how the accident happened. It also needs to document how the injury affects your health, independence, work, and future needs.
An Alpharetta spinal cord injury lawyer can gather medical records, accident evidence, employment information, and other documentation that helps build that picture.
We can also deal with the insurance companies and keep track of the legal process while you focus on treatment and rehabilitation.
What Can a Spinal Cord Injury Mean for Your Recovery?
Spinal cord injuries are generally described as complete or incomplete. With a complete injury, nerve communication is lost below the level of the injury. An incomplete injury means some movement, sensation, or function remains.
The effects can vary considerably from one person to another. Your injury level, its severity, your medical treatment, and your recovery can all affect what support you need in the months and years ahead.
Eligible Georgia residents with traumatic spinal cord injuries may also be able to receive support through the Georgia Brain and Spinal Injury Trust Fund Commission. Its grants can help with certain rehabilitation, assistive technology, transportation, equipment, and support needs.
How We Investigate What Caused the Injury
Spinal cord injuries can happen in car and truck crashes, falls, motorcycle collisions, and other serious accidents. The cause determines what evidence we need and who may be legally responsible.
If the injury happened in a motor vehicle collision, an Alpharetta car accident lawyer can review the crash report, photographs, available video, witness accounts, and vehicle information.
An Alpharetta spinal cord accident lawyer may also work with medical or accident reconstruction professionals when the cause of the injury or the circumstances of the accident are disputed.
What Compensation Can an Alpharetta Spinal Injury Lawyer Pursue?
The financial impact of a spinal cord injury may continue long after your initial hospital stay. Treatment, rehabilitation, changes to your ability to work, and the need for additional support can all affect the value of a claim.
Depending on your circumstances, compensation may include:
- Medical expenses: Hospital care, surgery, rehabilitation, medication, equipment, and necessary future treatment
- Lost income: Earnings missed while your injuries prevent you from working
- Reduced earning capacity: If the injury affects what you can earn in the future
- Care and assistance: When you need additional help because of your injuries
- Home or vehicle modifications: When accessibility changes become necessary
- Pain and suffering: The physical and emotional effects of the injury
There is no standard or average value for a spinal cord injury claim. We’ll look at the losses you can document, your medical outlook, available insurance, and how the injury is expected to affect your life.
That can make it important to understand your longer-term needs before resolving the claim. An early settlement may not reflect costs or limitations that only become clear as your recovery progresses.
Who May Be Responsible for a Spinal Cord Injury?
Liability depends on how the injury happened. A careless driver may be responsible after a collision, while a property owner may be liable when an unsafe condition causes a serious fall.
Other cases can involve a trucking company, contractor, employer, manufacturer, or another business whose actions contributed to the accident.
We will investigate what each person or company did rather than assuming responsibility rests with the most obvious party.
How Long Do You Have to File a Spinal Cord Injury Lawsuit?
Under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33, Georgia generally gives you two years after a personal injury claim accrues to take legal action for injuries to the person.
That does not mean every spinal cord injury case has exactly the same deadline. Different notice requirements, tolling rules, or other circumstances can affect the time available.
Starting early also gives us more opportunity to preserve evidence. Video can be overwritten, witnesses can become harder to locate, and physical or electronic records may become more difficult to obtain.
Planning for the Long-Term Effects of Your Injury
A spinal cord injury may change what you need at home, at work, or when traveling. Rehabilitation, mobility equipment, personal assistance, or accessibility changes may become part of your daily life.
Those needs can also change during recovery. We’ll use medical records and information about your day-to-day limitations to understand what support may reasonably be needed in the future.
An Alpharetta spinal injury lawyer can make sure the claim considers those longer-term effects rather than focusing only on the bills you have today.
Speak With a Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer Serving Alpharetta
You should not have to organize medical evidence, investigate an accident, and manage an insurance claim while adapting to a serious injury.
Van Sant Law can review what happened, identify who may be responsible, and explain the options available based on your circumstances. We handle personal injury cases on a contingency-fee basis, so there is no upfront legal fee.
If someone else’s actions caused your injury, Make the Right Call and contact us for a free consultation with a spinal cord injury lawyer serving Alpharetta.
