This is a question I was asked on WAVE Listens a couple of months ago about what to do if you have been hurt in a car accident when you go to the doctor or hospital:

“My neighbor lady, she’s 85.  She’s from Germany.  Someone hit her yesterday evening and I’m taking her to the hospital here in about half an hour.  She’s refused an ambulance but she was hit so hard it knocked her hairnet off of her head.

What else I should do today for her?  I was going to take her to the hospital to be checked out.  She has a bad headache and she said it did throw her head forward really hard so we’re going to get her checked out to make sure she doesn’t have some whiplash and make sure she didn’t have any back injury out of it.”

It is important to make sure that she does understand the questions that are being posed to her since English is a second language.  It will be assumed that she understands any question she answers. She should not answer any question that she is unclear on.

It is very important that you tell her not to minimize her injuries.  We have a tendency when we go to the doctor to try to make things seem a little better than they really are.

Make sure she tells the doctor everything that’s been going on with her from the time she was in the accident up until that appointment. Whether it’s gone away or not gone away, such as the headache you spoke of, tell the doctor. If the headache goes away by the time you take her to the emergency room she should still state that she had a headache because that could indicate that she had a concussion or a closed head injury.

Another thing that is very important for her to tell the doctors is any other problems she’s ever had with her back, whether they were minimal or not. If the doctor asks her if she has been in prior accidents she should tell them about all prior accidents that she has been in whether or not she had been hurt or not hurt.

She should hold off until she’s feeling better to speak with the insurance adjuster or sign any paperwork. This will help make sure she has a clear head and has had a chance to speak with a personal injury attorney about her accident.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been prompted to review the safety of steroid injections into the epidural space near the spinal cord. These injections are used by Pain Management Doctors to relieve back and neck pain. There have been reports of severe and unexpected complications, including paralysis and death.  The chief of pain medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, James Rathmell, states the procedure is safe and only in a very rare event is there harsh complications caused by the shots.

Rollie Parrish is one of the rare cases to have suffered a stroke during the procedure. He was treated by a steroid shot to his neck to ease chronic pain in a hospital in Nederland, Texas.  Now, he’s nearly blind and in a wheelchair.  Another case involved Luciano Rolando who has received a shot of Kenalog in the lower back. Within hours of the injection, he experienced pain in his legs and loss of sensation when urinating.  And it’s not only them.  In a survey of physicians reported in the Journal Spine, there were 78 cases where patients who got shots in the neck, known as the cervical area of the upper spine, suffered serious injuries. There were 13 deaths.  Physicians were alarmed of these reported cases.

Interestingly, epidural injections were estimated to be as much as $300 billion a year industry!  As a Kentucky Personal Injury Attorney I know that epidural injections relieve pain and makes life better for the victims of car accidents.  Unfortunately, not all recipients are aware of the risks.  Ask your doctor what the risks are if you receive an epidural injection.  This way you can make an informed decision as to whether this treatment is best for you.

According to a recent report the United States could save 2,000 lives a year if all 50 states established comprehensive programs of phased-in privileges for young drivers. A report from the Allstate Foundation and the National Safety Council stated that an estimated 20 lives can be saved in Kentucky from the implementation of a more comprehension graduated driver licensing law.

Auto accidents are the leading cause of death among teens. Every State has a form of GDL, which rewards novice drivers with additional driving privileges as they gain experience and maturity. John Ulczycki of the National Safety Council and other experts say that the most effective GDL programs contain seven components.

The seven components are:

1. Minimum age 16 for a learner’s permit;
2. Six months before unsupervised driving;
3. Minimum 30 hours supervised driving during learner’s stage;
4. Intermediate licensing at 16 ½ minimum;
5. Intermediate nighttime driving restriction beginning no later than 10 p.m.;
6. No more than one non-family passenger for intermediate license holders;
7. Minimum age 17 for a full license

New York and Delaware are the only states that have programs with all seven components. In Kentucky, the GDL program includes:

a) A six month learning permit at age 16 that requires adult supervision;

b) A restriction on driving after midnight during the permit level;

c) A six point limit on traffic violations to age 18, with a penalty of license suspension; and

d) A four hour driving education class. Under the current National Highway Traffic Safety

Kentucky’s program no longer meets the minimum requirements for a full GDL program with seven components recommended by the National Safety Council.

This is an issue that Kentucky Lawmakers should consider. As a Kentucky Personal Injury Attorney and a father of a teenage daughter, I am concerned about the number of car crashes involving teen drivers. I agree that more lives and more money will be saved if GDL programs in Kentucky will be strengthened.  This is enhancements to the current law should defiantly be considered by Kentucky Law makers.

Kentucky accident victims should never hide the fact that they have prior injuries! They should not fail to disclose any fact for that matter. Their personal injury attorney should know everything there is to know about them, even more than their own mother. Dishonesty can destroy a case in a number of ways.  When your attorney and doctor know what’s going on, what your history is, they can react to it.  A plan that’s best for your car accident case can be developed.  If you hide an old injury from your doctor or attorney, it creates a lot of problems in the handling of your accident case and the outcome of the case.

One of the most common things accident victims do is fail to tell their attorney and their doctor about a prior accident that they were in. Along the same line is not telling them about being treated for a similar injury even if it was not from an accident.  At the very least this hurts your case.  First, because the doctor doesn’t know about the prior treatment, he’s not going be able to treat you properly.  The tests needed to properly evaluate your injury will not be ordered. Prior medical records will not be reviewed.

Also, should your accident case go to court and the insurance defense attorney asks your doctor the question, “Did you know about the accident that happened in 2002?”, and he says “No, my patient never told me about that”, it makes the doctor look like he wasn’t thorough. And even worse it makes it makes it look like you were being dishonest.  That you are a liar. The theory would be if you were dishonest about that, are you dishonest about something else that’s going in the case.

The insurance company will eventually have access to all of your medical records. They are going to discover if you have previously complained about neck pain or were in an auto accident 10 years ago. If a Kentucky accident victim tells their doctor and attorney this information at the beginning of the case it will have very little affect on the outcome of your case. On the other hand, if the insurance company finds it on their own it can significantly lower the amount you will receive in compensation. Honesty is the best policy!

Over 500,000 Large Truck and Commercial Vehicles were involved in accidents in the United States in 2010. Over 100,000 people sustained serious injuries in those accidents. Tragically over 5000 people died in these accidents according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Semi trucks referred to as “80,000-pound unguided missiles” by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, present a significant danger to all drivers and passengers on highways and roads in America. These risks are greater when truck drivers involve themselves in distracted driving or drowsy driving.

There have been many reported accidents caused by a distracted truck driver. One tragic incident happened in 2010 in Hart County, Kentucky.  The use of a cell phone brought about tragedy for a family and friends in a van. The National Transportation Safety Board (NSTB) during the investigation of the fatal accident found out that the truck driver had used his cell phone 69 times in the 24-hour period before the accident. This includes one phone call at the time of the accident. NTSB concluded that a distraction caused by using a cell phone led to the fatal accident.

The NTSB recommended that cell phone use, including talking on both hand-held and hands-free technologies, be banned for commercial drivers excluding emergency situations. Since the NTSB do not have the power to implement the ban, its recommendation could be a spring board for federal rule-making agencies and state legislators to act.

Authorities are also trying to make sure that truck drivers get enough rest so they won’t be fatigued while at work. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is in the final stage of changing the rules about hours-of-service regulations. At present, drivers have an allowable 11 driving hours in a day, changing this rule would limit drive time to 10 hours per day. The proposed rules mandate that drivers take at least 1 hour of break time during the day. Proposed modifications would also require drivers to include two overnight periods before their workweek would restart.

As a personal injury attorney, accidents involving semi trucks are often tragic and result in death, expensive medical bills or long-term rehabilitation. Both of these changes will defiantly save lives.

A blog posted by John Patzakis on the eDiscovery Law and Tech blog really caught my attention. The article discussed a case where an attorney and his client were both sanctioned for removing posts from the clients Facebook account. “A Virginia state judge ordered lawyer Matthew Murray to pay $522,000 for instructing his client to remove photos from his Facebook profile, and for his client to pay an additional $180,000 for obeying the instructions. According to the final order in Lester v. Allied Concrete Company.

Murray instructed his client to remove several photos on his Facebook account due to fear that they might prejudice his wrongful death case brought after his spouses’ fatal automobile accident. The instructions were made through Murray’s assistant. The assistant’s email to the client, Isaiah Lester, stated that, “We do not want blow ups of other pics at trial, so please, please clean up your Facebook and MySpace!” According to local press reports, Murray quit his job as managing partner of the largest personal firm in Virginia and he no longer practice law.

Facebook has now been widely used by lawyers, investigators, insurance company and even the police. Some information may serve as grounds for discovering cases of deceit that might win a case. An intentional hiding, altering or destroying of evidence relevant to a legal proceeding is considered spoliation of evidence. Parties who engage in spoliation may face legal consequences. In the situation of Murray, the case he handled costs him a large amount of money and ended his career.

As a personal injury attorney, everyone should be extremely careful as to what they post on social media sites. Their posts may do more harm than good. Once a post is made it is there forever!  Even if it is later removed there are ways to bring those posts back.  Education is the key to the proper use of Facebook.  I have told many accident victims who have came to me for their Kentucky accident case to never post anything that you would not be comfortable with their mother reading in the paper.  I guess that dates me, but you get the point.

Do you remember the ZZ Top song “Arrested While Driving While Blind”? It referred to driving while so drunk that you couldn’t see.  Today’s version might include a verse about texting and driving and how it makes you blind to the road. Controlling a motor vehicle requires 100% of one’s attention at ALL times! If you do anything that draws your attention away from driving it puts you and others at risk of death. Distracted driving remains a problem on Kentucky roads even though we know its risks and dangers. According to car safety experts, 40% of car accidents are caused by distracted driving. I know this is hard to believe, but distracted driving is more dangerous than drunk driving.

The most common distraction for drivers is the use of cell phones while behind the wheel.  In Kentucky, 192 collisions were reported in 2010 due to use of cell phones for talking or texting while driving. Despite the implementation of a texting ban in Kentucky and other States nationwide, there are still people using their cell phones and there are still reported cases of car accidents caused by texting while driving.

The Study made by the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University found out that brain power used while driving decreases by 40% when a driver listens to conversation or music. Driving while doing other things is just like driving blind. Watch this video produced by Cindy Speaker and you can really see the danger that distracted driving can cause you and the people around you.

As a personal injury attorney, it troubles me to see reports of victims, especially teens, involved in car crashes caused by distracted driving. Do people not realize that once they move attention away from driving, they are putting their own lives and the lives of innocent people at a huge danger? Texting can wait or unimportant text messages can ruin lives. A call and a text can wait until you have reached your destination. Don’t cause a serious car accident by Driving While Blind.

Facebook is everywhere. I am on it.  My kids are on it.  Even my mother-in-law is on Facebook. Millions of people are using it every day. It is a social networking site that can be useful, addictive and an important source of information. Facebook is a tool utilized by employers, investigators, police officers, lawyers and even by insurers to do background checks.

Through Facebook lawyers have found evidence for cases of fraud, police have caught criminals, and insurance adjusters have collected information that would lower the value of insurance claims. Insurance companies are now monitoring social media sites. This may take money from accident victim’s pockets. Check out this news story from Seattle that shows how posting on Facebook can lead to lowering the value of your personal injury damage claim or delay you receiving medical treatment for your injury.

I can tell you that this guy wasn’t smart about it but in my opinion the insurance company over reacted. Kurt Norland posted pictures of himself drinking a beer and hanging out at the beach while he was collecting worker’s compensation benefits. Based on the pictures his benefits were cut off and a shoulder surgery postponed. This was done by the insurance company even though an MRI showed a rotator cuff tear. Did Norland deserve this treatment from the insurance company? Probably not, but he put himself in this situation by not monitoring his Facebook account and making his posts private. Never post anything on Facebook or any social media site that in any way could lower the value of your personal injury claim. His case was eventually won by his attorney, but I am sure the delays and the fact that no benefits were being paid was frustrating.

Another person posted a video of him pulling kids on an ATV while collecting disability. A lady was tagged in photos showing her taking helicopter flying lessons while she claimed to be severely injured. If they weren’t hurt this may be insurance fraud, but what were they thinking? These posts have destroyed their claims at the very least.

As a Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn one must control the privacy settings. As a personal injury attorney I suggest you mke sure that your profile, photos, videos and posts are only visible to your friends and not to everyone else. It is also important to choose your friends well. You might approve someone you don’t know whose job is to investigate you through your Facebook account. In some cases even the apparently irrelevant is twisted to make you look uninjured or to be lying about your injury. Insurance companies might find something that could ruin your insurance claim and cave you to receive less then what you deserve or nothing. The bottom line is, check what you post and be in control of your privacy settings.

Distracted driving is the number one killer of American Teens as reported by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It has been reported that 16% of all drivers under the age of 20 that were involved in a fatal accident have been distracted while driving. Texting while driving is dangerous and deadly but teens, who are more prone to use cell phones while driving are at the highest risk, ignore this. Several states have passed statutes to ban the use of cell phones while driving. Pennsylvania is getting ready to join the more than 30 other states that ban all motorists from texting while driving.

A nationwide public service advertising campaign has been launched that hopes to reduce the number of deaths from distracted driving by educating young adult drivers about the dangers of texting while driving. The campaign is sponsored by state Attorney Generals and Consumer Protection agencies, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Ad Council. The campaign is reaching out to drivers through TV, radio, outdoor and digital public service announcements as well as Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Connecticut and Tennessee are participating in the campaign to increase the awareness of teens of the law and the dangers of texting and driving. Attorney General George Jepsen of Connecticut said, “Laws prohibiting texting while driving are not enough. We need to change the culture, starting with the age group most proficient with new technology. They have the power to save lives by focusing on the road and not their cell phones while driving. Stop the texts to stop the wrecks.” Moreover, Attorney General Bob Cooper said, “Imagine closing your eyes while driving for the amount of time it takes to read a text message. Reading a text message is no less dangerous than any other diversion that takes your eyes off the road, and it can carry deadly consequences.”

The new public service ads show teens and adults that when you text and drive, you are not multitasking, but essentially driving blind. All of the ads direct audiences to a new campaign website where teens and young adults can find facts about the impact of texting while driving and tips to control the behavior.

As a personal attorney, I strongly support this new public service campaign. Texting while driving kills and changes lives in the process.  Statistically distracted driving is more dangerous thn drunk driving. This epidemic must be stopped. Our battle cry should be STOP THE TEXT TO STOP THE WRECKS.

I was recently asked a question by a concerned mother whose daughter was in a real bad car accident.  She was driving a friend’s vehicle, but unfortunately she did not have a valid Kentucky driver’s license.  She broke her neck, broke her back, broke her arm and had five staples in her head.  Altogether she was in the hospital for about a month.  The insurance company stopped paying for her medical bills. Now she is getting all these medical bills mailed to her. Can her daughter get the remaining medical bills paid? Can she recover for her injuries even though she didn’t have a valid Kentucky driver’s license? Does she have any legal leg to stand on?  Is there anything she can do, as far as getting these medical bills paid?  Can she sue insurance company to finish paying these bills?

Let’s get to the bare bones of the law and what needs to be done. The first thing you need to realize is that you’re only entitled to $10,000.00 of medical payments under Kentucky PIP or No-Fault law. These are benefits that are paid under your cars’ Basic Reparations Benefits. Once these benefits are exhausted there’s no more money that you can get from your PIP to pay your medical bills as they are occurring.

Your next step would be to turn the remaining unpaid medical bills over to your personal health insurance. Hopefully, you have health insurance. Why should your health insurance company pay the medical bills when the injuries were caused by someone else’s negligence? This keeps the bill collectors from calling and gets the bills paid! Don’t worry; your health insurance will be reimbursed when the case is over. That is part of the damages collected from the at-fault party that caused the injuries. The bottom line is let the health insurance company pay those bills.

If you don’t have health insurance there is nothing immediate that can be done to get those medical bills paid.  The at-fault party would have to pay the medical bills when the case is settled.  That’s part of the damages that you would claim, but there’s nothing to force them pay it right now.  This is where a personal injury attorney is extremely helpful.

I would get an attorney involved in your case to look at the options with the medical bills.  A lot of times an attorney can write guarantee letters to the health care providers. This can help stop the harassing phone calls.  That would mean that you would have to pay the medical bills from the proceeds of the accident case.

The final issue in this question was the daughter did not have a valid Kentucky drivers’ license. Kentucky is a comparative fault state. This means that an injured party can still collect if they were partially to blame for their injuries. This will affect your settlement by lowering the settlement by the percentage amount you caused your injuries.  This means your wrong doing can affect your recovery.  If a jury decides that not having a valid drivers’ license was a factor that contributed to the accident, your recovery could be lowered.

The bottom line is there should be a recovery of the medical bills and a dollar amount for pain and suffering, but an experienced Kentucky personal injury attorney should review the case to make the determination.