Brain Injury is a Process, Not Just an Event

Brain Injury is a Process:

                                                    Crushed Car, what may start that brain injury is a process.

Thirty-two percent of people who suffered a fatal TBI spoke after the incident at issue. Seemingly their injuries were not severe. Brain injury is a process.

In a Lawsuit Involving a TBI, The Defense May Argue as part of the brain injury process: The Plaintiff was able to say “Yes, I’m fine. I was wearing my seat belt,” when he exchanged information.  Even though trapped in the car, he could say:”Look in my briefcase. There’s my business card.”

He knew where it was.

But not being confused in the five minutes after a crash does not mean that there could not have been a brain injury.  And simply being lucid, doesn’t even exclude the type of brain injury that might involved a fatal injury.  See the below graphic, which indicates that 32% of those with fatal injuries, had talked after the initial injury.

Because brain injury is a process the damage may be ongoing from the time of the accident to several hours after the injury occurred.  The victim of an accident may even go into a coma several hours later.    This is the reason some brain injury survivors may go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.  You can read about some instances of a delayed coma in our TBIvoices pages.  https://tbilaw.com/tbivoices.  These are stories of actual traumatic brain injury survivors.

This Glasgow Chart will show that even though conscience at the time of the accident, brain injury is a process and can be fatal

This Glasgow Chart will show that even though conscience at the time of the accident, brain injury is a process and can be fatal

Source: Graham, Gennarelli, Greenfield’s Neuropathology, ©1996 Oxford University Press, page 197.

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by Attorney Gordon Johnson