There are an estimated 14,000 brain injuries in BC each year. Brain injuries occur in a large range of severity – from mild such as concussions to severe brain injury resulting in significant and permanent limitations.
Many of those BC brain injuries are caused by a traumatic event such as a car accident.
Brain injuries wreak havoc with one’s life – even a mild brain injury can be debilitating.
When you’re hurt by the fault of another person or company in BC, regardless of the severity of your injuries, including brain injury, you are entitled to compensation for your harms and losses.
Harms are the physical injuries you suffer including pain and suffering. An axonic brain injury for instance, is a harm.
Losses are your limitations and economic losses stemming from the harms. For instance, if your speech is affected, that is a loss stemming from the brain injury harm. Likewise, if you can’t return to your former job and will then earn less in the future, that too is a loss – an economic loss.
The fact about brain injury, especially mild traumatic brain injury, also known as a concussion, is many people don’t realize they’ve sustained the brain injury. In other instances, brain injury is apparent. These types of brain injuries are moderate to severe. Obviously lives are badly affected with these types of injuries.
Our approach to acting for people with brain injuries is to investigate and pursue both the legal side of the case and the medical side of the case extensively. The legal side to a case is assessing fault – is someone at fault for causing your injury?
The medical side is a process which includes in a nutshell:
- determining what your injuries are;
- getting treatment for your injuries; and
- learning the long-term outlook of your injuries.
The remainder of your case requires assessing your harms and losses in terms of dollars. After all, our compensation system is based on money for harms and losses caused by negligence. Money doesn’t heal you, but it’s the system in BC we use to put injured people as close as possible in the position they would have been had they not been hurt. Yes, it’s not perfect and often inadequate, but it’s the best we’ve got.
That said, part of the value of your claim is for money toward rehabilitation and treatment. Therefore, although money doesn’t replace your loss, it can go toward getting you better.
And so the final stage of your case is assessing it in terms of dollars – and again we do this with the help of experts such as economists, occupational and vocational consultants, accountants if necessary, and other medical specialists who can shed light on limitations and impairment.
Dykstra & Company was established in Abbotsford in 1982 and since that time have acted for injured people. We do not work for insurance companies or governments. We work only for injured individuals.
If you’ve been hurt in BC, especially if you suspect a brain injury, call the BC brain injury lawyers at Dykstra & Company for a free consultation. Note that it’s not always apparent you have a brain injury – if you hit your head or even suspect you hit hit your head in an accident, or some other mechanism, contact us to see how we can help investigate your claim.
