A serious Indiana car accident has left you in a great deal of pain. The car accident was not your fault, but the at-fault driver’s insurance company is not taking you seriously because your injuries are “soft tissue” injuries. What does this mean and how can you get the compensation you deserve? We explain how to handle this common car accident injury claim here.
What Is a Soft Tissue Injury?
The back and neck pain you are experiencing feels anything but “soft,” and yet you are being treated like you are faking or exaggerating your injuries because nothing shows up on an x-ray. Soft tissue injuries are sprains and strains of tendons, ligaments, and muscle that can be debilitating but are not easy to document because, unlike broken bones or brain injuries, they don’t show up on x-rays or MRIs.
A common type of soft tissue injury often sustained in a car crash is whiplash. Known medically as a cervical strain or sprain, whiplash is caused by the violent jerking of your neck back and forth in a rear-end or head-on collision. The effects of whiplash can be devastating, causing life-long pain and physical restrictions.
How to Document a Soft Tissue Injury
Since you won’t be able to present images of your injury, you will have to take some additional steps to document your injury and build a strong claim for compensation, including the following:
- See a doctor right away. As soon as possible after the crash, go to a doctor for a complete evaluation. Not only could getting treatment quickly prevent more serious complications, but you will also have documentation that you were injured in the crash.
- Get a referral to a specialist. If the emergency department doctor or your own doctor can’t diagnose your condition, go to a doctor who specializes in these kinds of injuries, such as a doctor of osteopathic medicine or an orthopedist.
- Take treatment seriously. It’s important that you follow through with treatment, which may include stretching exercises and physical therapy, to prove that you are serious about recovery.
- Keep records of everything. Keep track of all of your appointments, medications, therapy sessions, and home exercises to create a paper trail of your financial damages and your commitment to recovering.
- Talk to an attorney. Even after doing all of this, you could be steamrolled by the insurance company. Working with an experienced soft tissue injury attorney will put you on a level playing field.
Some soft tissue injuries are harder to recover from than broken bones and other more concrete injuries and you should be compensated for your medical expenses and lost wages just as you would be for other types of injury.
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