Emergency Medical Technicians will intervene in automobile accidents that involve injury, harm, or deaths. It is natural and normal to discuss the situation with them. Whether or not you discuss the accident with them, as well as whether you accept or refuse their care or advice, will have consequences, however, so there are details you should keep in mind.
This is because of Florida’s rules for personal injury claims, which are your best bet for recovering damages and compensation after such an accident. This article discusses…
A personal injury claim is the primary means for you to recover economic and emotional damages after an accident, so long as you were not primarily responsible for the accident. It is important when making decisions and discussing your accident and injuries to keep in mind factors that could affect your claims.
The observations and assessments of EMTs and other first responders, as well as any medical professionals you see afterward, can all impact your personal injury claim.
One thing imperative to resolving a personal injury case is reviewing the medical records associated with your injury as a result of the accident. Anything EMTs observe and write down in their medical reports will be reviewed by the defendant’s insurance company and anything that they observe or say will be used to evaluate the claim.
As a result, you want to share any pain, harm, or injury you have suffered during the accident with them, even if it appears or feels minor at the time. Especially because some injuries take hours, days, weeks, or longer to manifest the full extent of the harm or damage.
Refusing treatment and assessment by EMTs is not a strategic choice, either in terms of your health or in terms of your potential personal injury claim. First of all, medical professionals are more likely than you to know if you need treatment or not, and need to examine your injuries in order to do so.
Additionally, if you later wish to claim damages for any injuries suffered in the accident, your opponent’s attorneys will gleefully point out that you seemed not to feel injured or need treatment at the scene as a sign of your dishonesty or lack of serious injury. For example, if you are claiming that you hit your head and you can’t turn your neck, but at the scene of the accident you refused medical treatment, it may be seen that your injuries aren’t as drastic as you are now claiming.
Although there are perfectly viable reasons to refuse treatment at the scene or to be assessed, it is beneficial to at least be looked over by EMT at the scene so that there will be medical documentation of how you were feeling immediately after the accident.
Failing to do so does not automatically invalidate your later claims, but it will make them more complicated for your attorney to prove. As a result, doing so might negatively impact the amount of damages you will be able to recover.
One of the main arguments used by insurance companies to negate or negotiate down a personal injury settlement claim is to argue that the accident did not cause the injuries you are claiming damages for. The more evidence you have of those injuries being directly tied to the accident in question, the better.
As a result, you should share everything you can about your symptoms, condition, pains, and even discomforts immediately following the accident with EMTs. They will include these in their report which can be used later as evidence in your favor. Even though some information could also potentially be used against you, it is much more likely to help you because there is no better time to know what you were feeling after an accident than in the immediate moments after it.
Insurance companies are always looking for reasons to pay you less money in compensation. They may try to evaluate your claim to be significantly lower than it is really worth if they do not believe you were injured as a result of the accident. Or even if they just believe you cannot prove that you were.
The insurance company may argue that because you were not treated and you refused to receive any medical treatment you were not actually hurt and whatever injuries you are now claiming were not a result of the accident.
Insurance companies will have a significantly harder time denying the connection between the accident and the injuries if you got evaluated at the scene of the accident. Especially if the EMT evaluating you stated that they noticed those injuries.
Despite the disadvantages we have discussed, failing to receive or seek treatment does not disqualify you from bringing a personal injury claim later. You can still file a personal injury claim in Florida, even years after the accident. This law recently changed, however. The deadline used to be four years to bring a personal injury claim, but now you only have two years from the date of the accident to do so.
Additionally, if you do not receive or seek treatment within at least 14 days, you will lose your right to PIP benefits. PIP benefits stand for personal injury protection, and it covers your initial medical bills, 80% of them up to a total of 10,000 regardless of who’s at fault. This can be life-saving for families with any sort of financial precarity.
If you do not treat within those 14 days, you are not entitled to PIP and then you are working with a PIP offset. It is quite detrimental to your case to wait for treatment. The larger the gap or delay in treatment, the harder it is to prove and claim that this accident caused your injuries. This makes it harder to recover damages and full compensation with a personal injury claim.
For more information on Preliminary Medical Attention And Personal Injury Claims After A Car Wreck, a free initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you need by calling Fenstersheib Law Group, 24/7 at (800) 835-5762 today.
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