For any serious or life-threatening injury you receive from a car accident, it is imperative to seek proper medical attention. For any lesser injuries or symptoms that result from a car accident, you should go to urgent care. Injuries can hide under the adrenaline that is pumping through your body after an accident, so you should make a visit to urgent care even if you don’t feel like you absolutely need to. If you have sustained any injuries, it is important to obtain medical proof as soon as possible for insurance purposes and if you need to file a personal injury claim.
Delaying treatment will only exacerbate your injuries, including injuries that are minor. Those minor injuries could grow to become severe or even life-threatening without prompt examinations and treatment. Even if you feel that you do not need medical treatment and think the pain or other symptoms will subside or go away without it, you should still seek medical care as a precaution in such situations.
Many times, the shock of the accident will mask the real pain, allowing the underlying injury to worsen if not treated. If you feel any slight discomfort or disorientation to your every day life after an accident, go to the emergency room, an urgent care facility, or to one’s own doctor to be examined as soon as possible.
In situations when an ambulance responds to the crash, let the paramedics give you a preliminary evaluation and heed their advice about whether they should transport you. They are trained to assess emergent injuries and can determine if a trip to the local emergency department is called for. Insurance could cover the cost of the ambulance ride, if necessary. While there isn’t really a rule on how long you have to go to the hospital after a car accident, the longer you wait, the harder it might be to link your injuries to the collision versus another causal event.
If you intend to pursue compensation for your injuries, you will want as much evidence as possible that establishes the car accident as the main causal factor of your injuries beyond the at-fault driver’s negligence. If you wait too long to seek medical attention, the defendant or their insurance company might argue for positions such as:
- Your injuries were not serious because you did not seek medical attention right away, so your claims about your current injuries may be false.
- Another event might have occurred after the car accident that actually led to your current injuries.
- You waited too long to get medical treatment, so you are partially to blame for why your injuries worsened or required extensive treatment.
The defendant’s insurer might try to paint your actions as evidence that you were not hurt initially and, after the passage of time, have now concocted a false claim. This is in keeping with the goal of many insurance companies, which is to reduce paying out claims as much as possible. Getting prompt medical care and enlisting the help of a car accident lawyer are two ways to protect your rights.
In conclusion, it is important to call 911 or police to ensure emergency personnel can treat seriously injured people on the scene and to make sure a police report is made. If you do not need to be taken by ambulance to be treated at the hospital, be sure to seek medical treatment as soon as possible at the ER, urgent care, or your general practitioner if you feel a change to your every day life; that may be an underlying effect from the accident and should be treated as soon as possible.
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