What To Do If You've Been Injured

The steps that you take immediately after an injury will dramatically affect your ability to obtain fair compensation.

Follow these 10 Tips for Injury Victims:

1. Obtain immediate medical assistance.

2. Take photos of all damages. This means damages to a motor vehicle, etc. Also take photos of all visible injuries. Be sure to develop these pictures immediately. If they do not come out well, retake the photographs before the physical injuries have healed. If a dangerous condition caused a fall, take pictures of the dangerous condition before it is changed or repaired.

3. Write a detailed summary of all facts surrounding the injury incident. (Only give this to your lawyer.) Record the following information on an ongoing basis to maintain an accurate account of the suffering that you have endured:

   - Lost work time and wages.
   - Expenses resulting from your injuries (i.e., transportation, home care, etc.)
   - Pain and suffering.
   - Your physical limitations now and over a period of time.

4. Do not give representatives of insurance companies or adjusters written statements or tape-recorded statements when asked to do so on the telephone. Have them contact your personal injury lawyer.

5. Obtain a doctor's note for all time taken off of work as a result of the injury incident, even if you are self-employed.

6. Save all physical evidence, and mark them with some type of identification tag. For example, this may mean the shoes involved in a trip and fall accident, the receipt for products purchased at a store where you fell, or material or foreign objects which caused a fall.

7. Obtain and save the names of all witnesses and persons involved in an accident. Be sure to get the telephone number and address of the witnesses.

8. Do not sign anything without the approval of your personal injury lawyer. Insurance companies and adjusters frequently request people to sign authorizations to obtain information or releases of all claims. Be sure to show these documents to your attorney before signing them.

9. Avoid gaps of time between medical treatments. Long periods of time between medical appointments is used by the defense to argue that the later treatment is not related to the accident. Also be sure to give each doctor you see an accurate history of all of the physical and mental problem

10. As soon as possible, hire an experienced Personal Injury Lawyer such as Stephen D. Counts, whose practice focuses exclusively on representing injury victims and their families. Stephen D. Counts fights vigorously to protect the rights of personal injury victims in Orange County, Los Angeles, and Riverside.

Contact us today for a free confidential consultation. And remember, Stephen D. Counts will never charge you a cent until you receive your financial settlement. Furthermore, Mr. Counts is so confident in his expertise that if you receive no settlement, you won't have to pay him a cent.