Vlog: Case Timeline Section #1 - What do I do first?

Transcription:

Hi guys, this is Matt Clendenin] from The Clendenin Firm APC. We're going to go ahead and kick off our five part series on a personal injury case timeline, based on the new pamphlet my firm has. This is going to be the first section of the five sections and this one's the actual injury incident. You know, what happens right away when you get hurt. There's a couple of things that happen, the most important is your medical treatment. You have to get yourself checked out, especially with brain injuries or spinal injuries. You don't really know that you're hurt or what happened until days, weeks later. It's important to get checked out right away so that you can start the process. A lot of folks will tell an ambulance that they don't want to take an ambulance cause they're afraid of the cost. Some folks won't go to the doctor just cause they're a tough guy. 

So that's the first and most important thing is getting medical treatment. The second thing is investigation. An insurance company is geared up to investigate the case as quickly as possible. They will generally call an injured victim as well as the defendant to get a recorded statement within 24 to 48 hours, because they want to find out what happened. If it's a larger case, they'll send out someone to do surveillance on the victim within the first week. If It's a really large car crash, they'll have their forensic engineers investigating the scene right away. They'll have witness statements where they go out and contact everyone who witnessed it. Maybe there's surveillance cameras from a nearby business. All those things quickly disappear.

When we're talking about the first stage of the case, which is what happens when you get hurt, first thing is medical treatment. You got to get yourself checked out. The second thing is the investigation, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the insurance company is investigating. So you need to investigate too. You need your own lawyer to investigate whether or not you have a case, or if you have a big case or a small case. Nobody knows yet because you just got hurt, but you have to investigate. The number one area I see people really hurt their case is by not getting medical treatment. The second area that I see people really hurt their case is by not hiring a lawyer quickly to investigate. And those are two areas that are very important at the beginning of the case. 

And one last thing that I put in my pamphlet when it comes to medical treatment is healthcare. Everyone knows healthcare in country is a train wreck. It's terrible. If you're lucky and you have good healthcare, then no problem. If you have bad health care, which has a very high deductible, maybe you don't have the money to pay out of pocket to go see your doctor or in a worst case. There's a lot of Americans that don't even have health insurance, even though we're in the years of post Obamacare and the affordable care act, a lot of folks don't have healthcare. So one area that an attorney can help is by getting you medical care that will be paid out of your personal injury settlement. And that's called attorney liens. I have a separate video on that. I'll put the link up here for you guys. Attorney liens are a whole different thing, but that's one area I like to focus on at the beginning of the case. we'll make sure that you have available healthcare, even if you don't have it yourself.

 So that's the first section, what happens when you get hurt? First thing is medical treatment. Second thing is the investigation. So we'll go ahead and jump forward. Next week we're going to be posting pre-litigation that's the second stage and the five stages of a case timeline. So we'll tackle pre-litigation next week. Take care, everybody.