Can I Sue for PTSD After a Car Accident?
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a condition that can significantly impact your overall well-being. Sudden and violent events like car accidents can be traumatizing for the survivors. If you’ve been involved in a car accident, the fear and stress resulting from the event can have lasting effects that make it difficult to function as you did before the accident.
Fortunately, the compensation from a lawsuit can help put you back on more stable ground. Talk to our attorneys to find out if you have grounds to sue for PTSD after a car accident.
What Is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?
While PTSD is most often associated with experiences in war and other large-scale traumatic events, it’s also a typical result of a severe car accident. You don’t even need to have suffered significant physical injuries in the collision. Simply being involved in a sudden, unexpected event that threatens your health and life can be enough to trigger PTSD.
PTSD should not be confused with post-traumatic stress, which is characterized by feelings of anxiety, depression, and fear immediately following a traumatic event that eventually goes away. What makes PTSD different is that these feelings get worse over time, making it much harder for a person to live and function as they did before the accident.
PTSD is a serious mental health condition, and its symptoms require professional treatment. Medication, talk therapy, and other forms of treatment can aid in your recovery process.
Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress After a Car Accident
Post-traumatic stress following a car accident can present a wide variety of symptoms. Some of the most common include:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Re-experiencing the accident through flashbacks or nightmares
- Dwelling on the accident
- Difficulty recalling the details of the accident
- Avoiding the scene of the accident
- Fear of driving or riding in a vehicle
- Sleep disorders
- Difficulty concentrating
- Changes in mood or personality
- Disruption of personal relationships
- Difficulty working or maintaining employment
- Use of alcohol or drugs as a coping mechanism
- Suicidal thoughts
Seek mental health treatment if you’re experiencing post-traumatic stress that isn’t improving. A psychologist, psychiatrist, or other mental health professional will assess your symptoms and may diagnose you with PTSD. At that point, they’ll review your treatment options and help you work toward recovery.
You should also speak with a car accident attorney. Trying to secure a car accident PTSD settlement can help alleviate some of the stress associated with seeking treatment for PTSD and make it easier to focus on healing.
Long-Term Effects of PTSD
The symptoms listed above are some of the typical manifestations of post-traumatic stress. If symptoms gradually improve in the weeks following a car accident, you likely don’t have PTSD. However, speaking to your physician or mental health provider for a professional assessment is still important.
When these symptoms don’t go away and instead worsen with time, you’re likely experiencing PTSD. Over the long term, if not treated, PTSD can lead to a heightened risk of drug and alcohol abuse, anxiety, depression, heart disease, and other conditions.
Additionally, the overproduction of stress hormones makes it much harder to relax and enjoy life to its fullest. This can lead to damaged relationships, difficulties at work, and other harmful effects.
How to Prove You Have Post-Traumatic Stress After a Crash
If you’re seeking a car accident PTSD settlement, you’ll first need to prove you have PTSD as a result of your accident. This can be more challenging than proving you experienced physical injuries, as mental health effects may not be visually apparent, but it’s certainly not impossible.
Your attorney will need to demonstrate that you have PTSD as a result of the accident, as opposed to some other situation, and that it’s causing a significant negative impact on your life. Some of the evidence they’ll use to support your case includes:
- Medical records
- Documentation of symptoms
- Evidence of official PTSD diagnosis
- Police report from the accident
- Records of missed work
- Testimony from family, friends, and coworkers
- Your own testimony
- Testimony from expert witnesses, such as your doctors
Your car accident attorney will take the lead in gathering evidence to support your case. The opposing side will likely produce its own expert witnesses in an effort to discredit yours, but this is just another reason to trust your case to an experienced attorney. Their goal is to demonstrate that you have PTSD from your accident and effectively argue that you deserve compensation.
What Damages are Covered by a Car Accident PTSD Settlement?
The average PTSD settlement following a car accident covers various expenses arising from your diagnosis. The possibilities extend well beyond pain and suffering and may include:
- Mental health treatment
- Medications
- Lost income
- Childcare costs
- Temporary transportation
- Loss of consortium
- Loss of quality of life
The amount you can recover in compensation will also depend on many factors, including your ability to function from day to day, your ability to work, your long-term prognosis, and whether you have other complications arising from the accident.
While it can be more complicated to place a dollar value on PTSD than on physical injuries, this is another area where you’ll benefit from your attorney’s expertise. Lawyers have an understanding of how PTSD can impact an accident victim. They will be able to determine a fair amount of compensation and will fight for it on your behalf.
Contact the Ohio Car Accident Lawyers at Amourgis & Associates, Attorneys at Law
If you’ve been involved in a car accident and are experiencing PTSD as a result, you may be entitled to compensation. Our Akron car accident lawyers are committed to helping our clients seek maximum compensation after traumatic vehicle accidents. When you trust us with your case, we handle everything, removing the stress and making it easier to focus on your mental and emotional recovery.
If you’re worried about how you’ll pay a lawyer to pursue the compensation you need, we’re the firm for you. We work on a contingency fee arrangement. That means you pay nothing upfront, and we take our fees as an agreed-upon percentage from the compensation we get for you. If you don’t get paid, neither do we.
Contact us today for a free case evaluation and to learn more about how we fight for fair car accident PTSD settlements in cases like yours.
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At Amourgis & Associates, Attorneys at Law, we only represent consumers. We fight for regular people who have been seriously hurt in accidents. We fight for people who are being crushed by overwhelming debt and need a fresh start. We fight for individuals and families. Never businesses. Never insurance companies. We are loyal to the consumer.
