Spine Injury After Car Accident
A difficult part about accident injuries is that many types of serious damage do not manifest until weeks or months after the crash. This is especially true with spine injuries from car accidents. Even when these injuries do appear, they may seem minor on the outside, but imaging scans can reveal the serious injuries hiding within the body.
That was the case for our client, a highly trained nurse and head of the nursing department at a major New York City hospital. When she first came to our office we could tell immediately by the way she was walking and sitting that she had sustained a serious injury from the T-bone car accident she was recently involved in.
Investigating the Extent of Our Client’s Injuries
We progressed through the typical questions we ask new clients and it became clear that our new client had suffered serious injury to her back. Based on her MRI and the pain she was experiencing, we knew she needed cervical spine surgery and fast. According to her medical records and MRI, she was millimeters away from suffering potentially permanent damage and paralysis.
When we revealed this to her, she confessed that her doctor told her she should have the cervical spinal surgery, but she was trying to avoid doing so. We knew that she was on the verge of suffering permanent damage if she put this procedure off any longer, so we helped her obtain and second and even a third opinion, all of which suggested surgery.
Finally, our client agreed to the surgery and made an amazing recovery. Once on the mend, we consulted with her regarding her injury claim and were met with disbelief. She refused to believe that she had an insurance claim and literally laughed at us when we estimated her case could be worth more than a million dollars. She said we were crazy but sweet, thanked us for our efforts, and declined to continue her case.
Our Client Had Change of Heart When She Could No Longer Work
Shortly after being cleared to return to work, our client learned that she could no longer keep up with the physical demands of her job. This was a life-changing revelation and suddenly made the prospect of an insurance settlement much more convincing.
She returned to our firm and we immediately got to work gathering evidence and setting up a mediation session with the insurance company. During the first session, the insurance company offered $200,000 – a tenth of our initial request of $2,000,000!
Our client was ready to accept, but we reassured her that the insurance company was lowballing her case and it really was worth more than a million dollars. It took some convincing from her husband to agree to stick with it and let us do what we do best.
Two years later, we were overjoyed to inform our client that the insurance company settled for $1,900,000 of the $2,000,000 maximum amount. During the phone call, she accused us of teasing her and did not believe we could have gotten such an amazing settlement. It was not until we signed the final paperwork that the reality of her verdict set in.
Needless to say, the family was overjoyed. To celebrate, the husband and wife bought the entire Buttafuoco & Associates staff (a total of 22 at the time) a delicious lunch to share their gratitude with our team. Now that they were financially set, our client was able to devote much of her free time to serving her church and repaying God for His help in granting them a settlement beyond her wildest dreams.
