We have all passed an accident scene surrounded by the many flashing lights of police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances. When someone calls 911 after a crash, ambulances routinely go to the scene because the serious injuries that car accident victims incur regularly require immediate medical treatment. The following are only some examples of the emergency medical care that a car crash victim may need.
Stabilization at the Scene
A damaged vehicle may have trapped some accident victims or they may have suffered spinal or head injuries. Others may bleed uncontrollably or cannot breathe due to collapsed lungs or other organ injuries. Emergency medical personnel should identify when accident victims require stabilization and should render appropriate assistance to stabilize them as much as possible before moving them.
Emergency Transport
Emergency medical personnel should also determine when car crash victims are too injured to transport themselves to the hospital—and in those cases they should recommend ambulance transportation. Victims with particularly severe and life-threatening injuries may need helicopter transportation, especially if the victim’s injuries require treatments in a hospital that is farther away from the accident scene.
Trauma Care at the Emergency Department
Many emergency departments are certified as trauma centers because they are equipped to provide emergency services to patients with serious traumatic injuries, such as those suffered in car accidents. Trauma care can include additional stabilization measures for orthopedic injuries, spinal injuries, brain injuries, severe lacerations, burns, and more.
Diagnostic Testing
Whether you can transport yourself to the emergency department or whether you take an ambulance ride, an important step in your treatment is a careful and accurate diagnosis of all possible injuries. Emergency department doctors employ many methods to diagnose injuries, including:
- Asking questions about pain and symptoms
- Testing range of motion
- Imaging tests such as CAT scans, MRIs, and X-rays
- Glasgow Coma Scale test
- Intracranial monitoring test
- Cognition and neuropsychological tests
Doctors should evaluate a car accident victim for all possible injuries, because the symptoms of certain injuries may not immediately present themselves. Accurate diagnoses are not only vital to ensure a patient receives all of the treatments they need, but also so their medical records correctly reflect all of their car accident injuries.
Emergency Surgery
Some car accident victims require surgery as fast as possible, especially in cases involving internal organ injuries or hemorrhaging, as well as brain injuries that cause severe swelling or bleeding. Hospitals have emergency surgeons on hand who can react to dire situations and take surgical action as fast as possible to save someone’s life.
Costs of Treatment
All emergency medical services—from the ambulance ride to emergency trauma care to surgery—can cost a lot of money. In the face of a life-threatening injury, however, you don’t have time to worry about the expense of treatment or health insurance. Instead, emergency medical workers take action and the patient will have to worry about the costs later.
In Florida, a person’s own personal injury protection (PIP) insurance, which is no-fault insurance that covers 80 percent of medical expenses no matter who was at fault for the crash, can cover these medical expenses. However, PIP policies often max out at $10,000, and the costs of emergency medical treatment can easily exceed that amount. That leads to the question—who will cover your emergency medical bills after you max out your PIP coverage?
Florida law allows car accident victims to go outside the PIP process in cases of severe injuries. Injuries that require emergency medical treatment often meet this threshold of severity to allow a victim to seek additional compensation from any parties who caused the crash. Doing so can involve filing a claim against the negligent driver’s insurance company or filing a personal injury lawsuit against them.
Hire an attorney who can evaluate your situation and advise you of all possible options for you to receive compensation. Emergency medical bills can overwhelm patients, and you should not need to pay a dime if someone else caused the accident.
Contact a Fort Lauderdale Car Accident Attorney for a Free Consultation
You can face significant losses whether your car accident caused life-changing injuries or injuries that require a course of treatment and then heal. In either situation, you deserve proper compensation for your medical bills, lost income, and more. Please schedule a free consultation with a car accident lawyer at the Law Office of Joseph LoRusso. Contact us online or call (954) 715-3260 for help.
