Suffering an injury as a consequence of someone else’s actions is victimizing enough—but what happens when the injury you sustained during a truck accident has long-term or even permanent effects that actually prevent you from functioning normally throughout your day-to-day life? The last thing you want is to be haunted by someone else’s actions with every struggle you make to perform normal daily tasks. A truck accident attorney in Los Angeles or elsewhere can help ensure you get the compensation you need to make whatever changes are necessary to allow you to live a normal life again.

What is a catastrophic orthopedic injury?

A catastrophic orthopedic injury describes a severe, long-term, or permanent injury that prevents the injured individual from performing the normal functions of day-to-day living. There can be a lot of different levels to this type of injury. Breaks, dislocations, stress fractures, and ligament damage can take months to heal—and sometimes longer. Severe injuries of this kind may need additional surgeries to help correct, stabilize, or support the bone, and each of those surgeries adds an additional length of time to the recovery period. Some breaks, fractures, or even ligament injuries can leave a person with long-term and even permanent chronic pain. No matter the length of time over which the injury endures, the pain that is caused by such an injury can interfere with your ability to work. It may require you to take temporary or even permanent time off from your job, depending on what that job entails, and you may even have to invest in equipment or structural changes to your home to allow you to participate in normal daily activities.

And that’s only the beginning for those who’ve suffered long-term and permanent injuries, like disfigurements, spinal chord injuries, or traumatic brain injuries. While some accident injuries may only manifest short-term effects, others can be permanent, leaving individuals requiring long-term assistance (like home care). The expense of having to overhaul your home, coupled with the expense of having to find someone, or having to ask a loved one to take time off their job, to help you do the simple tasks you normally could perform on your own, and the expense of having to take time off work, find a new job, or seek government assistance to compensate you for your inability to work, can all add up.

The financial cost, however, is nothing compared to the emotional cost of feeling like you’ve lost a piece of yourself do to someone else’s actions. Suffering an injury is a traumatic experience, but long-term and permanent consequences of that injury can take a serious emotional and psychological toll. Many who’ve experienced such injuries even notice personality changes. Permanent injuries and long-term injuries can have psychological effects that result from the trauma itself. They can make you feel depressed, and can feel like they are changing who you are—but brain injuries can actually change who you are on more than a physical level. Brain injuries can actually affect and alter parts of the brain, and that means you can actually walk away from an injury a different person than you were before.

From a break or dislocation that causes long-term pain to an injury that leaves you with chronic pain, from an injury that causes a permanent disfigurement to a brain or spinal chord injury that can leave you with long-term or even permanent effects, the consequences of a catastrophic orthopedic injury can severely impact your life and the lives of those around you who care about you. No matter the extent of the injury, the pain that is caused is only the beginning. Injuries can cause an individual to miss work for short to long periods of time, can impact the individual’s ability to participate in daily activities, and can even change who you are.

Whether that injury is caused by a motorcycle or truck accident, medical malpractice, a pedestrian or bike accident, a slip or fall, or a workplace injury, and whether it is a result of another person’s negligence or malevolence, you deserve compensation to help you get through the changes you are about to face. You have legal rights, and there are benefits you can receive that will help make the transition easier and compensate you for your losses. Don’t let the guilty party off easy by staying quiet. Let a personal injury attorney help protect you from the consequences of a catastrophic orthopedic injury (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophic_injury).