Invisible Life Altering Wounds

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Greenberg & Bederman

The Washington Post recently published a story on the steady flow of American servicemen who find themselves at Bethesda Naval Hospital upon their return from Iraq or Afghanistan. These veterans are often suffering from the more visible wounds of combat but the focus of the article is on traumatic brain injuries and, as the headline accurately puts it, the “Invisible, Life-Altering Wounds” from which these soldiers are suffering.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States is not fighting a traditional war. It isn’t one mass of troops lining up to fight another. It is instead a war of ambushes and booby traps. It isn’t bullets that our soldiers have to worry about as much as it is mines, tripwires and improvised explosive devices (IED’s.)

The shrapnel from these explosions is dangerous enough, but it should also be remembered that a blast is essentially compressed air that is traveling at 1600 feet per second. If that force can take out walls and humvees, it can certainly do a fair amount of damage to a human being. We see the more obvious casualties of these blasts in the missing limbs, but the Post article is focusing on the damage that is done internally rather than externally.

 

In this article, we meet a series of soldiers who have suffered from severe traumatic brain injuries, and these men serve as an example as to how complex both the human brain and injuries to the human brain can be:

“There's the Marine whose injury robbed him of the ability to understand speech even though he could still read, another who could no longer laugh, one who could see out of both eyes but only to the left, and one soldier who became dangerously impulsive and started spending thousands of dollars on junk he didn't need.”

Granted, these are the more severe traumatic brain injuries, but the article also mentions that even mild traumatic brain injuries can be enough to disqualify a soldier for service, and some mild TBI’s also require lifelong medical care.

We are certainly familiar with this. While there is certainly a difference in the way our clients receive their traumatic brain injuries (car accidents or slips and falls,) the end results are very much the same. Our clients find themselves unable to go back to their jobs, or find that they are unable to support themselves. Their relationships have suffered and their quality of life has plummeted. They find themselves suffering from mood swings or black depressions.

In other words, they go through the same things that these wounded veterans at Bethesda Naval Hospital are going through, but with one critical difference. Wounded veterans have the benefit of the United States government doing everything that they can to help them, while our clients are usually dealing with insurance companies that are doing everything they can to not help.

Our clients with traumatic brain injuries are often accused of faking it, or of exaggerating the difficulties that these injuries are causing them. In short, they are frustrated about receiving the funds that they will need for treatment, occupational therapy, job training, or even money to live on. This is why they come to see us.  It is our job to help our clients get past the denials and delays that insurers often use to avoid paying what they should.

If you simply accept what an insurance company offers you at the time of the accident, you most likely will be taken advantage of. Remember, the prime objective of any insurance company is to make money, which means that they will do everything they can to pay out as little as possible for injury claims and medical bills. Since brain injuries often have effects that last for decades or even throughout the lifetime of the victim, insurance companies do not want to be on the hook for those costs.

At Greenberg and Bederman, we have decades worth of experience in helping brain injury victims deal with insurance companies. We also have decades worth of experience in helping arbitrators, judges and juries understand the seriousness of brain injuries and how the effects of these injuries keep our clients from living normal lives. We take real pride in helping victims of traumatic brain injuries get the compensation that they need and deserve so that they can get their lives back on track. We can help anyone in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. If you or a loved one has suffered a traumatic brain injury due to the actions or negligence of someone else, contact Greenberg & Bedermanfor a free legal consultation.
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Chris Henry Had Prior Brain Injury?

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Greenberg & Bederman

 

12/17/2009 - CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry has died, one day after falling out of the back of a pickup truck in what authorities described as a domestic dispute with his fiancée.

There wasn’t much about the death of Chris Henry that made sense. According to reports, Henry wasn’t a mere passenger in the back of that truck. Apparently he ran alongside it and jumped in the bed of the truck while it was still moving. He then fell out and landed almost squarely on his head, which caused blunt force trauma to the brain, which killed him.

Henry had a reputation in the National Football League as somewhat of a wild child, with multiple arrests involving marijuana possession, driving under the influence, assault and criminal damage. Throughout his career, Mr. Henry displayed what can kindly be described as a serious lack of impulse control. He displayed a bad temper and poor judgment on multiple occasions.

So when he died in that accident, many people just wrote it off as the behavioral norm. He had been a little crazy his entire life, so why should his death have been any different? But a recent article in the Los Angeles Timesoffers what may be a reason for not only his actions at the time of his death, but also his actions during his very turbulent life:

 

Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry suffered from a chronic brain injury that may have influenced his mental state and behavior before he died last winter, West Virginia University researchers said Monday.

The doctors had done a microscopic tissue analysis of Henry's brain that showed he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is caused by repeated hits to the head. It is a disease that essentially causes the brain to deteriorate, and as it progresses there are multiple symptoms that can affect the victim. Among these are dementia, irrational and violent behavior, memory loss and a lack of impulse control. As a receiver in the National Football League, Chris Henry would have spent the majority of the years of his life playing football. There was probably no shortage of incidents where he received major blows to the head. So all of a sudden, it becomes clear that Mr. Henry wasn’t necessarily “wild” and “immature,” but was instead sick, and his accident becomes that much more of a tragedy. It also raises a very troubling question. Why didn’t it occur to anyone in the NFL, or the Cincinnati Bengals or in Mr. Henry’s immediate circle that his behavior wasn’t natural? Why didn’t anyone recommend that he see a neurologist, or at the very least a therapist?

The story of Chris Henry underscores two things: First, it emphasizes how brain injuries can drastically alter the behavior of the victim. Secondly, it emphasizes how brain injury victims can go for years without being properly diagnosed.

The human brain is the most complex organ in the body. Modern medicine and modern science is still trying to figure out all the ways in which it works, or how one part of the brain connects to another, or how they all balance out and work together. When a part of the brain is damaged even slightly, the repercussions for the victim in terms of movement, the senses or emotional stability can be enormous.

For instance, what happens if you are an elementary school teacher who all of a sudden loses her ability to control her temper? What happens if you are an air traffic controller who all of a sudden loses his ability to remember the order of things? How are you supposed to continue on in your career? How are you supposed to earn a living? How are you supposed to live a normal life?

For that matter, how are you supposed to even know if you have a brain injury? It obviously never occurred to Mr. Henry that he had one, even as he was getting arrested, flying into rages, or, tragically, jumping on to the back of a moving truck.

If you have been in any kind of accident where you received a blow to the head, no matter how minor it might have seemed, it is crucial that you tell your doctor. Something as simple as an x-ray could be the difference between a proper diagnosis and having your entire life fall into ruin because of an undiagnosed brain injury.

Greenberg and Bederman is an injury law firm based in Washington, D.C. Many of our clients are people who have suffered brain injuries in car accidents or due to falls. We understand the difficulties that traumatic brain injuries can cause people, and we also understand the difficulties in getting insurance companies to recognize those difficulties. Insurance companies have an unfortunate tendency to automatically assume that people who suffer from behavioral or other mental difficulties after an accident are just a number, the lowest number, they can try to pay out an injury claim on. We take pride in our ability to help our clients fight through the obstructionism of insurance companies and get the compensation that they deserve. If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident and is suffering from the effects of a brain injury,  contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free brain injury legal consultation.
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