Personal Injury vs. Catastrophic Injury: What’s the Difference?

A personal injury can be serious, but for the most part, they’re temporary and allow you to get back to your normal life. These types of injuries can include a broken arm from a car accident, a sprained ankle from a slip, fall, a first-degree burn from an accident at work, and many more. But what happens when the injury is catastrophic, enough that it will change the rest of your life? Here’s what you need to know about catastrophic injury claims.

Catastrophic Injury Claims

A catastrophic injury claim still falls under personal injury law. Typically, catastrophic injury claims are reserved for survivors of severe injuries that require expensive medical operations, extensive treatments and constant at-home assistance. A few examples of catastrophic injuries include:

• Serious burn injuries
• Neurological disorders
• Organ damage
• Disfigurement
• Multiple-bone injuries
• Back injury
• Hearing or vision loss
• Amputations
• Spinal cord injuries (SCI)
• Traumatic brain injuries (TBI)

These injuries can put a serious amount of stress on the victim’s family on top of to the stress it puts on the victims due to the victim’s potential need for permanent assistance and supervision. For this reason, catastrophic injury settlements typically seek to compensate victims for these disabilities, which end up being pricier than your regular personal injury settlement. In addition, people who suffer catastrophic injuries can never go back to work, so they require compensation for wages for the rest of their life, as opposed to a personal injury claim, which seeks money for a limited amount of time.

If you or someone you know has been seriously injured in an accident, you deserve the chance to fight for the compensation you need to cover your losses, including medical bills, wages, pain and suffering, and more. Reach out to our Houston personal injury lawyers at Fleming | Nolen | Jez, L.L.P. to learn more about what we can do for you.