Vallejo Brain Injury Attorney

Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) impact the lives of victims in a variety of ways. Not all brain injuries are visible. When your loved one suffers from a TBI the impact on their lives and those around them is significant. Common symptoms include:

• Reduced mobility — Unable to stand, require the use of a walker,
• Loss of strength — Unable to use arms, hands, or legs
• Decreased cognitive function — Forgetful, changes to short and long-term memory
• Amplified or diminished sensations — Unable to feel, taste, hear, ringing in ears, etc.

To make things worse, the physical symptoms of a Traumatic Brain Injury are rarely the same from one victim to another. The realization of physical and emotional symptoms vary greatly as will the current and ongoing costs of providing care.

Traumatic Brain Injuries that are the result of someone else's negligence often provide legal circumstances that allow victims to receive cash awards that help to pay for the care required in the wake of a TBI. It does not matter if the negligent person is a civilian, governmental employee, or from a business. When innocent people are hurt due to the negligent actions of another, that person becomes responsible for the cost of current and future medical care. It also does not matter what the mechanism of injury was:

• Car accident
• Construction site accident
• A crash involving a tractor-trailer
• An injury from a slip-and-fall incident.

The negligent action of another has significantly changed the quality of a victim's life. It does not matter if the injury was accidental or the result of purposeful action. What does matter is that a person with a TBI has more difficulty:

• Making money or working at a job
• Providing for their family
• Enjoying life, and
• Participating in healthy relationships.

A person with a traumatic brain injury is not the only victim in their family. Their entire family is the victim. 

While it is easy to see why a person with a TBI is due to compensation from those negligent people that caused the injury, however, the process of receiving compensation is not easy. Because the impact of a TBI is difficult to prove and because nobody is sure what exactly the effects of a TBI are or how long they will last, victims need a qualified, experienced, and tenacious attorney to represent your case — Ed Smith. This is a process that requires the aggressive pursuit of your financial future. It is not about making you rich. It is about funding your future so that lost income is replaced, current and future medical expenses are covered, and that the pain, suffering, endless frustration, and mental shock of dealing with physical and emotional limitations is offset by a financial recovery.

Ed Smith is a Vallejo Brain Injury Attorney who specializes in financial recovery for victims. Ed has been helping people with brain injuries since 1982. My positive record of providing expert legal service shines brightly on AVVO. AVVO is a national rating system that rates each attorney qualified to practice law in the United States. The evaluation is complex and the score uses:

• Case results
• Evaluations by clients
• Reputation in the legal industry
• Quality of professionalism
• The number and amount of awards, and
• The appearance in publications.

Ed Smith has a perfect AVVO 10.0 rating in part because of clients that he has helped face the legal hardships and that have won respect him greatly.  He holds a spot as a member of the Million Dollar Forum which honors attorneys who have won million-dollar settlements. He continues to strive to help people with traumatic brain injuries because my staff and I see first hand how much people suffer. My empathy is a fuel that fires my tenacity and tempers my will to help people continue to live, even with TBI.

Traumatic Brain Injury is a medical term that means that some form of brain damage has occurred as the result of a head injury. In its most simplistic form, TBI falls into one of two categories. Those are:

• Open Head Injury — Sometimes referred to as a penetrating head injury, it occurs when the bones of the skull are compromised and an object penetrates the bone and damages the brain. Statistically, this is the most frequent type of brain injury. Examples might include bullets, glass from a vehicle accident, and even the bones of your own skull because of the force of impact from a motor vehicle accident or from injuries sustained during a fall.
• Closed Head Injury — The skull remains intact and no foreign object enters the brain. This type of brain injury occurs when our body stops suddenly and inertia causes our brain to slam into the inside of our skull. An example of how that happens is with vehicle accidents, especially rear-end accidents where the body is thrown forward, stopped by the seatbelt or windshield, and then thrown backward. The brain first slams into the front of the skull when the body's forward motion stops and then slams into the back of the skull when the backward motion is halted by the seat. Closed head injuries are either termed focal or diffused. A focal brain injury is located at just one spot on the brain. A diffused brain injury affects tissue and brain cells in more than one area.

• Tearing — physical tears in the brain's tissue. They range from microscopic to barely visible even with an MRI.
• Bruising — Bruising is bleeding between layers of tissues, such as a hematoma, or pooled blood that leaks outside of the brain and causes excess pressure on the soft tissue of the brain.
• Swelling  — Is a healing reaction from the body's attempt to heal the brain. Extra blood is sent to the brain to deliver extra oxygen and to provide all of the tools needed for mending cells, building new cells, and healing. Swelling is dangerous because the brain is in a closed case. Too much swelling of the brain results in permanent damage and even death.

Any accident, negligent event, or violent crime can lead to a TBI. The mechanism of injury may be a simple fall or as complex as a motor vehicle accident. Even repetitive injuries can lead to TBI. Examples include sports injuries. According to the Center for Disease Control, the highest cause of TBI - 40.5 percent - is from falls. Ten percent of TBI are the result of violence, and 19 percent are caused by unknown factors. Motor Vehicle accidents surprisingly cause only 14.3 percent of TBI, while 15.5 percent of TBI is caused when our head is struck against or by an object.

Negligent actions such as the following cause Vallejo Brain Injury:

• Texting or calling while driving
• DUI - impaired driving due to alcohol or drug use
• Unsafe driving or breaking traffic laws
• Construction work accidents or when debris from a construction site falls onto a pedestrian
• Lack of protection such as a helmet by a bicyclist or those who ride motorcycles as directed by the law
• Medical accidents and malpractice including events that lead to cerebral palsy
• Unsafe sports events, failure of refs to create a safe sporting environment, etc.
• Anesthesiology malpractice due to errors
• Violence or violent crimes that are linked to poor safety standards
• Semi-truck accidents that involve unsafe driving, fatigue or falling asleep while driving, rollovers, etc.
• Ejection from a vehicle, not wearing a seatbelt, malfunctioning vehicle safety equipment
• Patient abuse, and nursing home violations
• Injuries from defective products

The list of potential causes of negligence is long. The responsible party could be another person, a business, a civic employee, or even a business or governmental agency.

The CDC considers TBI the cause of 30 percent of deaths following an accident. That breaks down into nearly 140 TBI each day. Nearly 300,000 people are admitted to a hospital each year because of a TBI while 50,000 people lose their lives because of a TBI. Sadly, it is not getting any safer. In the last decade, there was a 70 percent increase in ER visits due to TBI and an 11 percent increase in admissions to hospitals because of TBI.

On average, a TBI has a lifetime cost that ranges from $85,000 to over $3 million per statistics from the CDC. Many people focus on the injuries and recovery. It is important to focus on the financial part of TBI too. Ed Smith provides world-class legal services for Vallejo residents with TBI. My vast experience helps people just like you or your loved one to gain the financial resources needed to pay for quality care and to increase the quality of life.

Watch the video below for more on the treatment of traumatic brain injuries.

I’m Ed Smith, a Vallejo brain injury lawyer. If you or someone that you care about has suffered a serious injury in an accident due to no fault of your own, please give me a call at (707) 564-1900 or (800) 404-5400 for free and friendly advice.

Proud members of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum and the National Association of Distinguished Counsel.

See our client reviews on Yelp, Google, Avvo, and past verdicts/settlements.

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Editor’s Note: This page has been updated for accuracy and relevancy [cha 10.9.19]