In June of 2003 (about one and a half years ago) my wife and I were rear ended by a person who failed to stop at the red light we were all stopped at. The driver of the vehicle is 100% at fault and has already paid us some restitution for medical bills and extra expenses incurred in fixing the car. The main problem is with the injuries my wife sustained from the accident. She was the driver of our car at the time we were hit and received severe physical and neurological damage as a result of the accident. On the physical side she has very severe back and neck pain that never goes away and regardless of treatment never really decreases. She has complete numbness all down her left side of her lower back, in addition to partial numbness on her right side of her upper back and both shoulders, arms and hands. She can't feel the bottoms of her toes and her feet are generally less sensitive than before the accident. This causes some trouble with balance especially when she stands on one foot (which almost always causes her to fall over and hurt her back).
In addition to the numbness she also has severe mental ability impairment. She was always very quick thinking and had a high IQ but now she has trouble thinking about or concentrating on even the simplest tasks. The worst part of it all is her memory. My wife can no longer remember anything for longer than a couple days. Anything that happened more than 5-6 days ago, no matter how important or severe, is completely gone. She cannot be reminded of it and seeing pictures of occurances or descriptions or anything does not jog her memory one bit. This poses a particulary sad problem because we were married not long after the accident (we had already set the date in the days before the accident and family were already buying tickets to fly in so rescheduling was not an option) She remembers absolutely nothing besides knowing that we were talking about our planning before the accident and now she can see that she has a wedding ring on and so do I. Other than these facts immediately available she has no idea that she got married. Amoung other things she doesn't remember things like seeing her family for the first time in over 5 years, having medical proceedures done (she wonders why her arm hurts so bad a few days after the surgery and has no idea what happened) and nearly being struck by lightning at a summer event (something that at the time was a huge deal but now receives a "we went to the renaissance festival?" response) About a month ago she lost her job that she had had since before the accident and now she doesn't know what to do since that job was the only thing she knew how to do before the accident. Since nothing ever changed in the job she was able to continue to do it after the accident for the most part (minus any lifting of any kind). But now that she doesn't have that job there is no way for her to move into a new carreer. Continuing education is completely out of the question because she can't remember a few days of classes much less an entire course.
On to my main question, what sort of damages should we seek? How can we help support our case so that she receives what she deserves? What sort of medical professionals should we see? Where could I find info on previous judgements/settlements that might help us support what we deserve in the case? To complicate matters, we have almost no money to pay for medical treatment. We already have a lawyer working on our pain and suffering case but he insists on waiting until she reaches "maximum medical improvement" before persuing the case further. What should we do?
I really appreciate the advice and sorry for the long post.
In addition to the numbness she also has severe mental ability impairment. She was always very quick thinking and had a high IQ but now she has trouble thinking about or concentrating on even the simplest tasks. The worst part of it all is her memory. My wife can no longer remember anything for longer than a couple days. Anything that happened more than 5-6 days ago, no matter how important or severe, is completely gone. She cannot be reminded of it and seeing pictures of occurances or descriptions or anything does not jog her memory one bit. This poses a particulary sad problem because we were married not long after the accident (we had already set the date in the days before the accident and family were already buying tickets to fly in so rescheduling was not an option) She remembers absolutely nothing besides knowing that we were talking about our planning before the accident and now she can see that she has a wedding ring on and so do I. Other than these facts immediately available she has no idea that she got married. Amoung other things she doesn't remember things like seeing her family for the first time in over 5 years, having medical proceedures done (she wonders why her arm hurts so bad a few days after the surgery and has no idea what happened) and nearly being struck by lightning at a summer event (something that at the time was a huge deal but now receives a "we went to the renaissance festival?" response) About a month ago she lost her job that she had had since before the accident and now she doesn't know what to do since that job was the only thing she knew how to do before the accident. Since nothing ever changed in the job she was able to continue to do it after the accident for the most part (minus any lifting of any kind). But now that she doesn't have that job there is no way for her to move into a new carreer. Continuing education is completely out of the question because she can't remember a few days of classes much less an entire course.
On to my main question, what sort of damages should we seek? How can we help support our case so that she receives what she deserves? What sort of medical professionals should we see? Where could I find info on previous judgements/settlements that might help us support what we deserve in the case? To complicate matters, we have almost no money to pay for medical treatment. We already have a lawyer working on our pain and suffering case but he insists on waiting until she reaches "maximum medical improvement" before persuing the case further. What should we do?
I really appreciate the advice and sorry for the long post.
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