Have you suffered from a burn injury and have questions? Read these 3 burn injury tips, then contact our Gilbert attorneys to get started.
1. After a Burn Injury
The number one thing is always get the best medical care possible. Sometimes our clients are on access programs. They can only see a limited number of doctors. There are good doctors on those programs, but are the very best doctors on those programs? Not necessarily. Call us. We can actually refer you to additional doctors. We don’t have to replace the doctor that you’re seeing, but additional doctors that can give you and your doctor a second opinion. Maybe they have some techniques that are not being used for therapy or skin grafts or whatever. At least you’re aware. Maybe they just say, hey, your current doctor is doing fine. Keep on with them. That’s confirmation for you. That’s the number one thing. Call us so you get the best medical care possible.
The other thing that is important is, once you get the best medical care possible, when it comes time to settle your case, we often hire professional photographers to photograph your injuries and scarring and things like that. Because if you just take a picture on a selfie camera and send that to the insurance adjustor versus having the proper lighting so that it really emphasizes what you’re going to be living with, that can make a big difference in dollars and cents. Especially nowadays when we have social distancing, photographs are even more important because probably the adjustor isn’t going to see you in person.
There are other important things that need to be addressed in burn injury cases but they do vary depending on a lot of details.
2. Common Mistakes After a Burn Injury
The number one most common mistake is that people think that we’ll just see how things shake out before we even talk to an attorney. Now, there’s nothing terribly wrong with seeing how the other insurance company is going to treat you, but the reason why you don’t want to wait to at least talk to a lawyer or somebody in a law firm early on is because the insurance adjustor is going to be your best friend at first.
They’ve been trained to control you in one of two ways: being very nice, or if that doesn’t work, being very nasty. You’ll get one of those versions. Typically, if you have a serious burn injury, you’ll get the very nice treatment. They know that your case could be worth a lot of money. If you get the very nice treatment, they’ll even say, “Why would you want to call a lawyer? All they’re going to do is take most of your money. You don’t want that and I’m so nice. You know that because I’m so nice, it’ll all work out. We’ll pay you a fair amount in the end.” By the time you find out that that’s not true, your case could be damaged.
Call us early on. You don’t have to hire us right away but at least call us right away. We’ll have one of our attorneys analyze your specific situation. We can warn you about some other mistakes that might happen. Then if you want to go ahead and test the water with the insurance adjustor, at least you’ll be warned about the tricks that they often do and what happens but there’s so many mistakes that can happen.
3. Selecting a Burn Injury Attorney
We had that raised recently by a potential parent. The situation was where it actually was a child that had been burned. It was a complicated factual situation. There was some question about whether the child at-fault. Newsflash, our attorney told the family— children are not considered at-fault. Sometimes insurance companies try to blame parents, but even then, these are complicated situations.
That’s why you do need to call us and talk to one of our attorneys because even then, there’s legal cases that say even if a parent does something that may have in some way might have contributed to the child’s burn injury, that cannot reduce the child’s recovery. That’s a legal thing that you’d have to talk to one of our attorneys about but insurance adjustors by and large, they’re not aware of that. Hey, Mom, Dad, you’re at fault. That scalding whatever, we weren’t responsible, or that product that was defective, no, that was you, Mom, that was you, Dad. If that’s happening, you call us first. We can prevent that from being literally thrown back in your face.
The other thing that you need to do is when you’re choosing an attorney or a law firm for a burn injury is you want to ask them about their experience and outcomes. We’ve handled cases involving electrocution and death. Those things are very specialized experts. If your loved one has survived or you, then the follow-up care can be prolonged and it’s very important. All those things go into choosing the right law firm if you or a loved one has a burn injury. Talk to them, ask them what their experience is, ask them what the outcomes have been, and that will help you decide and make the right choice for you or your loved one.
Have you or a loved one suffered from a burn injury and have questions about these 3 burn injury tips? Contact experienced Gilbert Burn Injury Lawyers at Free Injury Advice today for a free consultation and case evaluation.
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