May 27, 2022 | Personal Injury
Hypoxic brain injuries occur in a variety of ways. In some instances, these injuries are nobody’s fault. However, there are times when hypoxic brain injuries occur due to the careless or negligent actions of others. Here, we want to discuss whether or not individuals can recover compensation for a hypoxic brain injury.
Hypoxia refers to a situation where a person receives some oxygen but not enough to sustain normal brain functioning. When a person sustains a hypoxic brain injury, this means that they have gone for some period of time without receiving enough oxygen to the brain through regular blood flow. Any person who has sustained a hypoxic brain injury can suffer from significant long-term disabilities.
Hypoxic brain injuries can occur in a wide variety of ways. In some cases, these injuries are caused by non-traumatic medical incidents inside of a person’s body. This includes strokes and heart attacks.
However, hypoxic brain injuries can also occur as a result of traumatic incidents, including:
Additionally, hypoxic brain injuries can occur as a result of smoke inhalation, poisoning, suffocation, or near-drowning incidents in hot tubs, pools, or other bodies of water.
Individuals may be able to recover compensation after sustaining a hypoxic brain injury, but only if the injury was caused by the careless, negligent, or intentional actions of another individual or entity. In these situations, it will need to be shown that the at-fault party (the person alleged to have caused the hypoxic brain injury) owed some sort of duty of care to the injury victim. It will then need to be shown that the at-fault party breached their duty of care in some way and that this breach of duty led to the hypoxic brain injury.
Establishing the elements of negligence is not easy, and a skilled brain injury lawyer needs to be involved early in the case and handle all aspects of communication with other parties. A lawyer will work with trusted financial and economic experts to adequately calculate total expected losses. Hypoxic brain injury victims may be able to recover a range of compensation, including coverage of their medical bills, lost wages, long-term care needs, in-home medical and physical assistance needs, prescription medications, medical devices, and more.
There is no set amount of compensation available for hypoxic brain injury victims in West Virginia. Rather, insurance carriers and personal injury juries will take several factors into account when determining proper compensation amounts if another party is shown to be at fault. Some of these factors include the severity of the hypoxic brain injury and any disabilities, whether or not an individual can work, the total length of recovery time, whether or not there was any shared fault for the incident, and more.
In West Virginia, personal injury victims have two years from the date an injury occurs to file a lawsuit in civil court against the alleged negligent party. Failing to file a lawsuit within this two-year timeframe will likely result in the injury victim becoming unable to recover the compensation they need. Please keep this West Virginia personal injury statute of limitations in mind and work with a skilled personal injury lawyer as soon as possible.
