contact us today (775) 789-4944 contact us today (775) 789-4944If someone has injured your child, you may be struggling with overwhelming feelings like sadness, guilt, anger, and helplessness. Parents want to be able to protect their children from everything, and they also want to fix everything that goes wrong. When your child has a significant childhood injury, you may not know how to respond. You might even feel guilt about contemplating a personal injury lawsuit because you know that no amount of money can restore them to a pre-injury condition.
The harsh reality is that significant personal injuries are expensive. Paying for medical care, physical therapy, emotional care, and any necessary accommodations can easily be thousands—maybe even millions—of dollars. Pursuing a personal injury claim can ensure that your child has the financial resources they need to deal with the aftermath of this injury. If the injury led to a disability that will impact your child’s ability to work, these lawsuits can also help prevent your child from struggling with poverty as they age. A Reno child injury lawyer could help you protect your child after an accident.
If a child reaches adulthood without ever having an injury, then they probably did not have much of a childhood. In the ordinary course of development, falls, scrapes, bruises, strains, sprains, and bumps commonly occur. Children are curious and fail to recognize that some things can injure them. That is why small children need close supervision. As children age, they need less constant supervision, though they remain more prone to injuries than adults well into adolescence.
While accidents are part of childhood, most of these accidents are minor or moderate. Mom or Dad can fix most of them with a bandaid and a kiss. Others may require some medical treatment but have no long-term impact on the child. Critical injuries go beyond those everyday scrapes and bruises—they can cause physical, mental, or emotional disabilities that may impact the child for the rest of their life.
The nature and the extent of the injury help determine whether a personal injury lawsuit is appropriate. The injury does not have to be catastrophic to support economic damages. Some relatively minor injuries, like a broken bone, may heal completely but can still be expensive to treat, require caregivers to miss work, and cause the child significant pain. A lawyer in Reno could help parents assess whether they have a child injury claim and—if so—the value of the claim.
It is impossible to predict every potential childhood injury. However, some injuries are predictable, which means that caregivers, property owners, and others should take reasonable precautions to prevent those injuries. Pool or water injuries, playground injuries, car accidents, bicycle accidents, pedestrian accidents, school accidents, and animal attacks are among the most common serious childhood accidents.
These scenarios can lead to significant injuries such as spine or neck injuries, broken bones, crush injuries, amputations, disfigurement, and traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). Children are resilient, which means that some injuries—like broken bones—may heal stronger than before the break. However, children are also vulnerable with developing brains and bodies. Injuries like TBIs can interrupt and alter their standard development path, leading to lifelong disabilities.
No attorney, even one who focuses on child injuries, can give a child’s prognosis. However, they can work with the child’s medical team to understand what their prognosis is likely to be. Then, a Reno attorney could add their knowledge of the lifelong expenses linked to similar injuries to ensure that the child gets the compensation they need to deal with those injuries.
When a child sustains a serious injury, it can feel like the end of the world. Depending on the severity of the injury, it can change not only your child’s life but your entire family’s way of life. Adjusting to those changes can take a physical, mental, emotional, and financial toll on the family.
A Reno child injury lawyer could help. In addition to protecting you and your child’s legal rights, we can support you. We have helped others in similar situations, and we can help you navigate your new reality. Schedule a consultation to learn more.