There are many different types of personal injuries that individuals can sustain, and they all have different characteristics that come into play when assessing what sort of recovery may be needed, and what sort of recovery may be obtained under Missouri law. When pursuing a personal injury lawsuit, it is important that your attorney understand and be experienced in handling special types of injuries to make sure that both short term and long term repercussions will be thoroughly investigated and addressed. The Missouri personal injury attorneys at The Bradley Law Firm are well aware of the need for in-depth analysis of special types of personal injuries when pursuing recovery in a personal injury lawsuit. The following are short descriptions of the types of injuries which require special analysis, with links to further information on each topic:

Brain Injury: There are two general categories of brain injuries, depending upon their cause: traumatic brain injuries and acquired brain injuries. A traumatic brain injury comes about from a direct impact to the head. Traumatic brain injuries are often caused by car accidents, contact sports, physical violence, or falls. An acquired brain injury comes about not from a direct impact to the head, but from some other action upon the body that can affect the brain, such as choking, where the flow of oxygen to the brain is disrupted, or as a result of a sickness or the ingestion of a drug. A brain injury can have mild to severe results, and can affect the way a person thinks and acts, and can also affect other bodily and sensory functions.

Spinal Cord Injury: Like a brain injury, a spinal cord injury can come about as a result of a physical impact, or derive from sicknesses or a physical disorder. Unfortunately, spinal cord injuries are most often suffered by those between the ages of 16 and 30, who engage in a high level of physical activity in sports, and who have a high incidence of being involved in automobile and motorcycle crashes. Again, like a brain injury, a spinal injury can have mild to severe results. And because the spinal cord houses the body’s central nervous system, a spinal injury can impact nearly all of a person’s bodily functions.

Broken and Fractured Bones: Nearly every person, at one time or another, will suffer a broken, or fractured, bone. There is only so much pressure one’s bones can take before they will break, whether it is a small hairline fracture, in which the broken bone essentially stays in place, or a severe open fracture, where a bone may actually end up protruding from the skin, and require surgery in order to properly heal. Broken and fractured bones are always the result of an impact, whether a car accident, a sports injury, or a fall. Although bones do heal, they are extremely painful injuries, and can have a lasting effect on physical mobility if they do not heal properly. Children, especially, seem to suffer broken bones in accidents, because their bones are not fully developed. Because of that, it is especially critical that children receive appropriate care for a broken bone, so that their mended bones can develop properly as they mature.

Birth Injuries: While modern medicine has made great strides in reducing infant mortality as well as reducing the number of women who die or suffer injury from giving birth, the fact remains that not all births proceed without difficulty. For example, a baby may not be positioned correctly (such as breech), the umbilical may wrap itself around the baby’s neck, the mother may suffer an extended or difficult labor, or the child may be too large, or the mother’s pelvis too narrow, for normal birth. On these occasions, medical or surgical intervention may be needed to preserve the life or health of the mother or infant during labor or childbirth, and because of these interventions, or because they have been delayed, injuries can occur during birth. While some birth injuries are minor and do not have lasting impacts, others may have permanent effects.

Burn Injuries: Most people, at one time or another, have experienced some sort of burn injury. Fortunately, most of the time, these burn injuries are relatively minor, such as with a kitchen or barbecue mishap, for example, or from working with harsh chemicals or electronic devices. Even these minor burns can be extremely painful, and the pain and scars often last for an extended period of time. However, when an individual suffers a severe burn, the pain is immense, and the overall physical impact is hard to describe. Recovery from a severe burn can be extremely difficult and long, involving surgery and extended hospital stays. Severe burns can cause permanent physical damage and permanent scarring.

Wrongful Death: The term wrongful death refers to any death that has occurred by a wrongful act, whether intentional, through reckless behavior, or by negligence. While the direct victim of a wrongful death, being deceased, is incapable of suing the wrongdoer, the law recognizes that wrongdoers should not be allowed to avoid liability because of the victim’s demise, and thus gives survivors a right to sue. Survivors may be spouses, children, parents, or siblings of the deceased, who have been deprived of the benefit of the victim’s life. The unexpected death of a family member can cause numerous hardships, not only in the form of the loss of companionship and financial support, but also by imposing unexpected costs upon the survivors—such as outstanding medical and funeral bills, a future need for childcare, and so on. When a loved one has died through a wrongful act, a suit in wrongful death can alleviate many of the pragmatic consequences caused by the death.

Shoulder Injuries: Shoulder injuries come in many different forms, from broken bones to torn ligaments and tendons to soft tissue injuries. While severe shoulder injuries are easy to identify as the result of, for example, a car accident impact, the severity of some shoulder injuries are difficult to measure in terms of liability. This is because even shoulder injuries that seem minor at first can have long-lasting and debilitating impact. This is because shoulder movement and shoulder mobility is critical to everyday life—from being able simply to lift objects, to reaching, bathing, dressing, and doing any number of normal household and workplace activities.

Soft Tissue Injuries: When one thinks of car accidents or other impact-related accidents such as motorcycle or bicycle crashes, one often thinks of the pain or injury related to broken and fractured bones. However, an individual can suffer a severe injury even without suffering a bone fracture. Some soft tissue injuries—of which whiplash is a classic example—may not show up until hours or even days after an accident, and can cause considerable pain, discomfort, and disability. People may not realize that the pain they feel is directly related to an accident, because soft tissue injuries do not show up in an X-ray, but can only be detected by other imaging methods, such as CAT scans and MRIs. People who suffer pain and discomfort following a traumatic impact need to be aware that soft tissue injuries are very real, and need medical attention.

The Bradley Law Firm is intimately familiar with all of the types of personal injuries that accident victims may suffer, and because of our extensive experience in handling Missouri personal injury cases that deal with these types of injuries, we can assure you that you will be able to recover all that you are entitled to.