What Exactly is a Catastrophic Injury?

A doctor is seated and showing a patient in a wheelchair an x-ray of her chest If you recently suffered a serious injury, you may be wondering if it qualifies as a catastrophic injury and if you can pursue compensation with the help of an attorney. The answer is, it depends, but if the injury is serious and was caused by someone else’s carelessness, then you probably have the grounds for a claim.

Online and elsewhere, you may see attorneys’ websites refer to these cases as personal injury or catastrophic injury. You may be wondering what exactly makes something catastrophic. At law firms, attorneys generally refer to these injuries as catastrophic because of the impact they have on the victim’s life, such as:

  • Expensive medical care and the resulting medical bills
  • Physical pain and emotional suffering caused by the injury
  • Trauma and mental anguish
  • An inability to work or return to your job, either temporarily or permanently
  • The loss of income from being unable to work

As you can see, these are catastrophic, life-altering consequences. That is what we mean when we call these catastrophic injuries. Much more than a bruise or a cut, serious personal injury has a significant impact on your life and the lives of your family.

Some of the elements that indicate you may have a personal injury case include:

  • You were injured in an incident or accident (car crash, work accident, at an unsafe property, at the hospital, etc.)
  • Someone else who owed you a duty of care (another motorist on the road, your landlord, a doctor) was careless and negligent
  • This negligence is the direct cause of your injury

If you have experienced significant financial losses, as well as consequences that are harder to assign a dollar value to – pain, depression, trauma, and diminished enjoyment of life – then our attorneys may be able to help you pursue compensation for all of those impacts on your life.

To find out if you have a personal injury case in Chicago or the surrounding areas, please contact Sklare Law Group. We provide free, no-obligation consultations so you can decide what to do next.

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