If you are involved in an automobile accident, the entire trajectory of your life is likely to be changed, at least temporarily. From the moment the crash occurs, your safety and health and the safety and health of others who were riding in your vehicle become your number one priority, as well as the priority of the emergency workers who arrive at the accident scene. Once your injuries have been assessed and treatment is underway, you are likely to feel shaken, overwhelmed, and unsure of what to do next.
In addition to surrounding yourself with the support of your loved ones and healing from your injuries, it is important that you select and retain an attorney right away. The other parties who were involved in the accident may be fully or partially responsible for the injuries and damages that you have sustained. Hiring an attorney immediately will ensure that your rights to recover for your injuries and damages are protected. When you know that your rights are protected, you can breathe a bit easier and focus on recovering from your injuries and rebuilding your life.
Hiring an attorney right away will ensure that you do not lose access to important evidence that can most easily be obtained in the hours and days following the accident. Evidence is information that your attorney can use to support your claim for damages. People like eyewitnesses, police officers, ambulance drivers, and other emergency workers who saw or attended to your accident should be interviewed as soon as possible after the accident because their ability to recall details of what they witnessed declines over time. Also, information from the accident scene and the vehicles that were involved in the accident must be obtained quickly because accident scenes get cleaned up and vehicles get moved away from the scene.
If your accident involved a tractor trailer, hiring a lawyer immediately prevents the trucking company from having an unfair advantage. When a tractor trailer crashes, the trucking company sends an accident response team to the crash scene to do an immediate inspection of the truck and trailer, collect black box data, and obtain information from the computer software and driver dash cam. This evidence may be difficult to obtain from the trucking company later on in your case, so it is best if your attorney can get to the accident scene quickly to collect it themselves.
A final reason why accident victims should retain an attorney immediately after a crash is to avoid settling your case for less than it is worth. Insurance companies often send out proposed settlement agreements while crash victims are still in the hospital, perhaps even before they know the full extent of their injuries. The reason for this is not to get your claim paid quickly; it is to get you to accept the settlement without carefully assessing whether it will adequately compensate you for your injuries and damages. Even worse, insurance adjusters may contact you and try to get you to talk to them about the crash, recording your every word as evidence to use against you later on. If you have an attorney, the insurance adjuster must speak with your attorney once they are aware that you are represented by counsel.
Giddens Law Firm, P.A.: Serving Clients throughout Mississippi
If you would like to learn more about whether the Mississippi Injury Lawyers at the Giddens Law Firm, P.A. are a good fit for you and your current legal matter please call our office today, at (601) 355-2022.