Navigating Common Truck Accident Injuries, Disputes, and Damages

If you’ve been involved in a truck accident, you may be dealing with common but life-altering injuries, such as spine damage, head trauma, or broken bones. These are more than just medical challenges—they can put your life on hold and require legal help to recover.

When a driver’s negligence causes you harm, you should understand the true impact of physical and emotional injuries and your legal options. The experienced trucking accident attorneys at Miller Law Group work hard to get you the compensation you deserve.

The most common injuries you may experience after being hit by a truck include burns, broken bones, and fatalities, as well as psychological effects.

Burns

Burns are common trucking accident injuries due to the flammable liquids or hazardous chemicals trucks often haul. The severity of burn injuries varies, but many require pain management, extensive wound care, and rehabilitation. You may experience permanent scarring, physical limitations, and long-term physiological impacts. If the truck driver wasn’t licensed to transport hazardous materials or didn’t practice due care while hauling flammable substances, they may be liable for your harm.

Head Trauma

The force of a semitruck collision can cause serious head trauma, including traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). These life-changing personal injuries may require long-term medical care, rehabilitation, and ongoing support, and full recovery may not even be possible. The North Carolina truck accident lawyers at Miller Law Group understand how devastating head injuries can be. We’ll thoroughly investigate whether the crash was caused by driver negligence, such as violating federal hours of service laws or driving under the influence, and work to hold all responsible parties accountable.

Crush Injuries

When a semitruck collides with a passenger vehicle, the sheer force of the impact can trap occupants between crushed metal and debris, causing extensive injuries. Crush-related truck accident trauma may include broken or shattered bones, nerve damage, and damage to internal organs. In the most severe cases, those injured in a truck accident may suffer permanent disability, limb loss, or reduced mobility. These devastating injuries often lead to lasting financial hardship and emotional trauma. At Miller Law Group, our attorneys are here to help you navigate the legal process, so you can focus on healing.

Spinal Cord Injuries

Spine and nerve damage are common truck accident injuries that can have devastating impacts. Partial or complete paralysis can cause lasting pain and suffering. Victims may also experience economic uncertainty due to the cost of ongoing treatments, rehabilitation, and caregivers, plus lost work. If you’ve suffered a spinal injury in a truck crash, our attorneys can help calculate the long-term cost of care and lost wages and pursue full and fair compensation.

Emotional Trauma

The psychological effects of a trucking accident can be as debilitating as physical injuries. You may experience flashbacks and PTSD, or make lifestyle changes to avoid similar situations. Recovering from the emotional trauma of a serious car accident can require therapy, medication, and ongoing support, resulting in financial distress and pain and suffering. Our team understands how deeply these emotional injuries affect your life. We’ll ensure they’re fully accounted for in your claim.

Death

Sadly, fatal truck accidents are all too common. If you’ve lost a loved one after they were injured in a truck accident, our personal injury attorneys can help you explore your options and pursue a wrongful death claim as necessary.

Trucking companies are part of a profitable industry, and these businesses will go to extremes to try to dispute common truck accident injuries to remain profitable. Insurance adjusters may try to minimize or deny your payout, so you should be prepared to recognize these signs to protect your rights:

Shifting Blame to You

If you’re injured in a truck accident caused by a commercial vehicle driver, the trucker’s insurance provider may try to insinuate you committed a traffic violation or somehow contributed to the crash. This is because North Carolina’s strict contributory negligence laws bar you from receiving compensation if you are even 1% at fault for a crash. Pointing fingers at innocent drivers is one way the trucking company can shift blame to escape responsibility. If this is happening to you, contact a North Carolina truck accident lawyer who is well-versed in contributory negligence laws. Miller Law Group in Raleigh understands how to build a solid case to disprove your involvement and hold the faulty parties accountable.

Denying Claims

Insurance companies cannot deny a legitimate claim. If you were harmed by their client’s actions and they refuse to acknowledge it, work with an attorney to gather documentation necessary to support negotiations or file a lawsuit if necessary. Legal counsel can also review the insurance provider’s actions for signs of bad faith practices.

The provider may also challenge medical treatment and try to refuse to pay claims for care, despite clear evidence that your TBI or shattered bone requires specialty services. Alert your personal injury attorney to contested claims so they may help protect your right to compensation for injury-related expenses.

Questioning Health History

The at-fault parties may also say you had pre-existing conditions in an attempt to downplay injuries caused by the crash. They may request irrelevant medical records or other documentation to reduce liability. Always speak to your attorney before responding to medical record requests to prevent granting the insurance company access to unnecessary personal information.

Injury and crash details may influence the compensation you’ll be awarded for a truck accident. Our North Carolina trucking accident lawyers work hard to build a strong case and get you the maximum compensation allowed by state law. We want you to receive what you need to move forward, which can be affected by these factors:

• Severity of Injuries: The compensation for minor, moderate, and severe or catastrophic injury claims will coincide with the level of harm you’ve experienced.
• Fault and Liability: Proving the truck driver’s negligence caused the crash is essential to establishing fault necessary for compensation.
• Intangible Damages: Calculations for pain and suffering, loss of companionship, loss of consortium, and other intangible damages may vary depending on the injury type and the person harmed.
• Insurance Limits: Trucking companies are required to carry minimum insurance coverage, but extreme injuries requiring a life flight, surgeries, or hospitalization may exceed these limits.
• State Laws: While North Carolina does not observe limits for compensatory damages, some states do; other location-specific statutes, like contributory negligence, can also alter your eligibility for receiving damages or change the amount awarded.

Injuries are common outcomes of trucking accidents, but that doesn’t mean you have to let the insurance company decide what they’re worth. If you need help building a case against a negligent driver or proving damages after being injured in a truck accident, let Miller Law Group help. Our North Carolina truck accident attorneys are standing by to protect your rights to the recovery you deserve. Contact us today for a free consultation.