PTSD After Truck Accidents & Related Legal Claims
People often associate post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with military service members, police, paramedics, and others who regularly experience life-threatening events. However, PTSD may affect victims injured in truck accidents as well. The impact of a massive truck striking a passenger car may be terrifying. Various triggers may cause intense flashbacks, nightmares, or involuntary memories of the trauma. Victims may try to avoid situations, people, and places associated with the accident. They may lose interest in activities that they previously enjoyed, or they may feel isolated and struggle to experience feelings of happiness. A victim may suffer from depression, panic attacks, self-destructive episodes, sleep disturbances, and problems with focus. Any of these issues can disrupt work performance, personal relationships, and social interactions. A person with PTSD may risk losing their job or marriage.
Symptoms of PTSD sometimes arise soon after an accident, but they may not develop for several months. A victim may need months or even years to recover. Although some people who develop PTSD can recover on their own or with assistance from friends and family members, others will need treatment from psychiatric professionals. This may involve cognitive behavior therapy, group therapy, and medications, such as antidepressants.
Pursuing Compensation for PTSD After a Truck Accident
A diagnosis of PTSD arising from a truck accident may entitle a victim to receive many forms of compensation if they can prove that another party was at fault. In many cases, a victim sues the truck driver who struck their vehicle, as well as the trucking company that employed the driver. If the truck driver acted carelessly in causing the accident, the trucking company may be liable for their actions even if it did nothing wrong. The victim would need to show that the trucker had an employment relationship with the company and was performing their job duties when the crash occurred. Sometimes a trucking company was directly responsible for an accident, moreover, such as when it failed to use reasonable care in hiring and supervising its drivers.
Holding a trucking company liable may help a victim obtain the full scope of their damages, since companies have more assets and insurance than individual drivers. Damages may cover both economic and non-economic forms of harm. They may account for medical bills for treating PTSD, lost income caused by time missed from work, and the emotional distress arising from the condition.
In other situations, a truck manufacturer may have been at fault for an accident if they provided a defective component for a truck. The victim would need to show that the design of the component was unsafe or that an error occurred during the process of making or assembling the component that made it unsafe. These products liability claims may involve expert witnesses who can explain the technical nuances of the component at issue.
Trucking companies, truck manufacturers, and insurers usually retain capable defense attorneys to avoid or minimize liability. A victim thus should hire an attorney who is experienced in these cases to represent their interests. Many people worry about legal fees when they are already accumulating expenses after an accident, but truck accident lawyers typically handle cases on a contingency fee basis. This means that they do not get paid for their services until they recover a settlement or judgment for a client. Their fee is calculated as a percentage of this amount.
