Actions to Take After an Arlington Personal Injury Accident
Although the last thing anyone wants to do after a personal injury accident is collect evidence to detail their damages and losses, you need to understand that the actions you take after this accident can not only keep you safe but help protect your legal rights. For these reasons, following an Arlington personal injury accident, you should consider doing the following:
Reach out to the Authorities Immediately
Following an Arlington personal injury accident, you need to contact 911 immediately. This is the quickest way to alert the police of the incident, get the accident on record, and notify emergency medical personnel that you or another individual needs immediate medical help.
After the police get to the scene, they can perform a preliminary investigation of the accident and jot down their findings in their police report. If you decide to file a legal claim following your personal injury accident, this report can provide you and your attorney with valuable evidence regarding the incident and what happened.
Collect Evidence From the Accident Scene
Depending on the circumstances of the accident, you should try to collect as much evidence from the accident scene as you can. This evidence should include photos and videos of your visible injuries, any dangerous conditions that caused your harm, the weather conditions at the time of the accident, any motor vehicles involved in the accident, and any other details that can help show what happened.
Get Details From Others Involved in the Accident
Try to get as many personal details from all those involved in the accident as you can. For example, if you were involved in a motor vehicle collision, try to get names, contact information, insurance information, and driver’s license numbers.
Yet, as you gather these details, you also want to pay attention to what you say to those around you. This means you should avoid apologizing for the accident, taking any of the blame, or making any definitive statements about what happened. These types of comments can end up hurting your case and impacting the amount of money you can collect.
Check for Witnesses
If there were individuals at the accident scene who saw what happened, see if you can get their names and phone numbers. Their statements can often provide helpful information regarding the accident and help back up your claim. Yet, if these individuals do not want to share their personal details, do not try to force them. Instead, leave this information gathering to your attorney.
Avoid Posting on Your Social Media Accounts
Even though posting about your accident on your social media accounts may seem like the best way to get out your frustrations regarding what happened to you, the defense will use everything you post on the internet against you.
Consequently, after your accident, you should avoid posting anything about the incident or your injuries online. You should also tell family and friends to avoid posting or tagging you in any posts related to the accident.
Get to a Doctor as Soon as You Can
Although not every personal injury looks like it resulted in extensive harm, get to a doctor as soon as you can following the incident. Many times, symptoms of serious injuries, such as internal bleeding or a traumatic brain injury, can take some time to manifest. Yet, the longer you delay getting proper medical treatment, the more debilitating and fatal the injury can become. For these reasons, it is best not to wait to get checked over by a healthcare professional after your accident.
In addition, getting this prompt medical treatment can also help your legal claim, especially since the insurance companies are looking for any reason to deny your case. As a result, if you do not get to a doctor shortly after your accident, these insurance companies will argue that your injuries are not as severe as you say they are or a subsequent event caused them.
When you get checked over by a healthcare professional immediately after your accident, these doctors can document information regarding your injuries in their medical report, which can serve as evidence of a direct link between your Arlington personal injury accident and the harm you sustained.
Watch What You Say to the Insurance Adjusters
Although speaking to an insurance adjuster after your personal injury accident may not seem like a big deal, you need to stay wary of this conversation. Remember, insurance companies are a business, and like other businesses, they too want to make money.
By denying your claim or paying you less than you deserve, the more money they make. For these reasons, insurance adjusters will often try to contact you as soon as possible after your accident, when you are most helpless, and try to get you to admit to something that can hurt your case.
That is why before speaking with an insurance adjuster, you should discuss your case with an experienced Arlington personal injury attorney at Trust Guss Injury Lawyers. These attorneys can not only make sure you understand more about these deceitful practices the insurance companies may try to engage in and what you can do to avoid them, but they can even take on these discussions on your behalf, ensuring that you do not say anything that can hurt your case.