Common types of bus accident injuries range from minor to severe. Still, even a seemingly minor injury can bring pain, stress, and financial instability to your life. Medical care for any injury, even one that can heal, is expensive. More serious injuries can drain your bank account and bring additional long-term consequences and hardship.
You can count on a bus accident lawyer from Munley Law for help if you sustain injuries in a bus accident. We handle all the details and costs of your case. You get the attentive, strategic, experienced representation you need without paying anything out of pocket.
Bus Accident Injuries Can Be Traumatic
Some bus accidents produce traumatic injuries. These injuries are serious, requiring intense medical intervention. With these injuries, healing often takes a considerable amount of time.
Bone fractures and lacerations are examples of trauma injuries. Fractures often require at least one surgery. Sometimes, physicians need to reset or reinforce a fractured bone with rods or screws. You can heal from a fracture, but it can require a lengthy rehabilitation period. Even with great healing, the injury can leave you with chronic pain and limited strength and mobility in the affected area.
Lacerations are deep cuts. When a bus is involved in a crash, the collision can crush parts of the vehicles involved, creating sharp or jagged edges. These edges can cut through the skin and deep into the soft tissue, damaging muscles, tendons, and nerves. Both fractures and lacerations also come with the risk of infection. Infections can set in during surgery or at the wound site during healing.
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Catastrophic Injuries Can Change Your Life Permanently
In even worse cases, bus accidents can cause catastrophic injuries. Victims may experience some recovery, but usually, that recovery is minimal. Traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, severe burns, and crush injuries are examples of catastrophic injuries that a bus accident can cause.
Traumatic Brain Injuries
Not all brain injuries are catastrophic, but even those considered moderate can worsen if not treated. A concussion is a brain injury that typically heals with time, as long as you follow medical guidance. However, symptoms can linger. While those symptoms may not incapacitate you, they can affect your quality of life. If you sustain a blow to the head or neck in a bus accident, go to a doctor to see if you have a concussion and get fast care.
More severe traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) can drastically diminish your cognitive and physical capabilities. You may struggle to remember, learn, and make judgments. You could lose your ability to speak and communicate. You may be unable to balance or coordinate movements. A TBI can also disrupt your body’s physiological systems, making it difficult for you to live independently.
The long-term effects of a brain injury can alter families. Relationships change in unwanted ways when independent family members become dependent, and spouses or children have to take on heavy caregiving roles.
Spinal Cord Injuries
The spinal cord is integral to the brain’s control of your body’s functions. A spinal cord injury can destroy communication between the brain and certain parts of the body. These devastating injuries can leave you partially or wholly paralyzed, depending on where the spinal damage occurs.
Some victims lose the ability to breathe on their own or to control their bladders and bowels. They may experience sexual dysfunction. Spinal cord victims often have painful muscle spasms and can develop bedsores, blood clots, and infections from extended immobility.
Burns and Crush Injuries
Sparks can fly, and gasoline or other chemicals can ignite when a bus is involved in a crash. Burn injuries are particularly painful and disfiguring. Burns can affect far more than the skin, damaging soft tissue and bone. They also come with a high risk of infection. Recovering from a burn is a long, painful process.
A crush injury can leave you with bones too wounded for repair. It could also lead to organ damage. In a bus accident, you could be crushed under the weight of the vehicle or between the bus and another vehicle or a stationary object. This destructive pressure can cause lasting, disabling effects.
Moderate Bus Injuries May Heal With Time and Medical Intervention
You might sustain impact injuries in a bus accident. Though you will probably see significant or full recovery, that only comes after a period of painful healing and time missed at work. Our team recognizes what these injuries cost you and will work to get your pain and losses acknowledged.
Back injuries are among the common, debilitating impact injuries. We know how much a back injury is worth in an accident, and we work to make sure you do not settle for less. You could also sustain facial injuries that leave you bruised or scarred or in need of dental work. We will account for all the costs and losses associated with your injury when demanding compensation.
Neck injuries, including whiplash, are another type of impact injury. Getting prompt medical attention can help you take proper care and avoid long-term complications, such as pain and limited range-of-motion. Shoulder injuries and knee injuries are also possible impact injuries. You may need a period of immobility to recover.
Bus Accidents Can Cause Significant Emotional Injury
It is likely you will experience emotional trauma after a bus accident. You may have nightmares, insomnia, or anxiety. You may have flashbacks and relive the experience over and over. Emotional distress is also a natural outcome of physical injury. Pain is stressful. It can make you feel depressed and isolated as you wonder if you will ever be the same as you were before the crash.
Your bus accident lawyer will account for these hard-to-see, but deep, losses. We know how to value and fight for emotional distress damages in personal injury cases. The negligent party may try to dismiss your emotional pain, but we will not be intimidated by these attempts to deny you justice.
Bus Drivers Deserve Compensation for On-the-job Injuries
Passengers are not the only bus-accident victims. Bus driver injuries are possible too. Drivers hurt on the job may be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits, and we are here to help those drivers. For example, a school-bus operator can connect with an experienced school bus accident lawyer from our team. A bus accident lawyer can help drivers of government-owned or private-company buses.
Whatever the situation, Munley Law can help. We will explain the difference between workers’ comp vs. personal injury claims and the process for pursuing each. Workers’ compensation provides medical coverage and partial wage replacement for employees injured during their course of duty.
Sometimes, drivers may have grounds to collect workers’ comp benefits and file a third-party injury claim. We have got you covered even in those more complicated circumstances.
Bus Accidents Can Have Fatal Consequences
Over a recent year, Pennsylvania experienced 624 bus accidents, according to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) crash statistics. These accidents resulted in 525 injuries and 12 fatalities. If your loved one was killed in a bus crash, we can help you seek justice for their preventable death.
Your loved one’s death may present justification for filing a wrongful death claim. A settlement or trial award can deliver compensation to help you deal with the financial instability resulting from your loved one’s lost income, burial costs, and other related expenses. You may also seek financial acknowledgment for the loss of your relationship.
Our Team Is On Your Side; Contact a Bus Accident Lawyer at Munley Law for a Free Consultation
Whether you are injured or lose a loved one in a bus accident, connect with a bus accident attorney as soon as possible after the event. Pennsylvania has a two-year limitation for filing most injury claims against private bus companies. If your claim is against a government entity, the timeline is shorter. If you are seeking workers’ compensation, you need to take action quickly.
From the moment we form a legal partnership, the team at Munley Law will support you and fight to get you financial justice for your bus accident injuries. We know that no two cases are exactly alike, and we will design a strategy to suit the specific needs of your case as we work to secure the best outcome available. To schedule your free case review, call or send us a message. We are on your side and look forward to making a positive difference in your life.
Munley Law has been a leader in personal injury law for more than 60 years, earning national recognition for landmark verdicts and settlements. Our attorneys are consistently named among Best Lawyers in America and Super Lawyers, and several are board-certified in Civil Trial Advocacy by the National Board of Trial Advocacy, a distinction held by fewer than 3% of lawyers nationwide. Unlike many firms, we limit our caseloads to give each client personal attention, invest heavily in top investigators and experts, and never charge a fee unless we win.
