Memphis Personal Injury Law Blog

While you may be fortunate to emerge from a motor vehicle accident with minor injuries, there is always the chance you or your loved one will be left with a very different life after a serious crash. Broken bones, internal injuries and spinal cord injuries are all common following a catastrophic accident, especially if the accident involves high speeds or a large vehicle. Perhaps one of the most devastating injuries possible is a brain injury.

A traumatic brain injury can rob you of your freedom, your mobility and even your very personality. Depending on the area of the brain and the severity of the injury, your life may never be the same.

If a doctor misdiagnosed your illness, chances are you and your family spent weeks, months or even years struggling to make sense of it. Apparently, somewhere along the chain, beginning with your first symptom complaint, someone missed something. As a result, your illness was allowed to progress unchecked. Any treatment you received did little to relieve your suffering and may even have exacerbated the situation.

Sadly, you are one of millions who receive incorrect diagnoses or for whom doctors simply dismiss their symptoms. Most frequently, misdiagnoses occur with patients who have cancer, leaving many to die from an illness that may have been curable if the medical team had properly diagnosed it. Even more than errors in surgical procedures, a missed diagnosis is becoming the most common medical mistake in the country.

It seems as if every time you get behind the wheel of your car, you are placing your life at risk. More vehicles than ever are on the roads, and Tennessee speed limits continue to increase. Throw in a fleet of truckers anxious to meet their deadlines, and you have a recipe for tragedy.

From time to time, TV news or safety advocates will warn drivers of smaller vehicles what they can do to avoid being in an accident with a truck. Avoiding blind spots, keeping your distance and trying not to cut off a tractor-trailer are all sage pieces of advice, but sometimes no precautions can prevent a collision with a truck if the operator makes a critical error.

In the wake of the tragic downing of cargo ship El Faro on October 1, 2015, the widow of a crew member now looks for new safety measures. The El Faro went down as it carried cargo from Jacksonville, Florida to San Juan, Puerto Rico. The catastrophic event took the lives of 33 aboard the ship, including Frank Hamm, the husband of Rochelle Hamm.

What she found out about the events that transpired those few days, encouraged her to lobby for improved safety measures to protect merchant mariners in the future. She wishes that protection would have been in place for her husband.