If you were severely injured in an accident, you may be eligible to add damages for pain and suffering to your personal injury claim. 

To determine how much to award you in damages for pain and suffering, the following are typically evaluated: 

Your Total Medical Expenses 

The overall cost of your medical care following your accident may be useful in illustrating how severely you suffered. If you required emergency medical care, for example, this may be considered a good indicator that you had a high degree of pain suffering following your accident. 

The more care you needed and the higher those expenses, the easier it is for your personal injury attorney to illustrate your suffering. 

Photographic Evidence 

Another useful tool for your personal injury attorney to utilize to help make your case to the court is visual evidence. This type of evidence may do a better job of compelling the court to award a judgment in your favor. 

In the best case scenario, you would be able to obtain photographs of the incident. However, if you were severely injured, you may not have been able to do this. You can begin taking pictures of your injuries and healing as soon as it’s feasible to do so, and continue throughout the entire process. 

You may also want to include notes or journal entries that give more detail to the photo, such as your pain level, activity restrictions, and overall how you’re progressing. 

The Opinion of a Medical Expert  

Consider hiring a medical expert witness to offer testimony regarding your injuries to the court. Expert witnesses are highly valuable in accident cases because they are generally able to understand complex medical information and relay it to the court in layman’s terms that are easier for the majority of non-medical professionals to understand. 

This means that those deciding your settlement award will have an easier time fully grasping how severely you were hurt and what your healing and rehabilitation was like from the beginning to the process up until now. Often, accident victims who work with medical experts receive higher settlement offers than those who don’t. 

What Can a Texas Personal Injury Lawyer Do to Help? 

If you or someone you love were severely hurt in an accident, it’s important that you secure legal advocacy as soon as possible. Contact the Bourlon Law Firm for more information about getting help from an experienced injury attorney or to book your consultation at (361) 289-6040.