The steps that you need to follow if you are involved in an automobile accident depends upon the severity of the collision which occurred. If you are in a major automobile collision, which not only involves significant damage to your car and includes secondary impacts such as being pushed into a light pole or your vehicle overturning after the initial impact, then you will probably experience significant pain and discomfort which will require paramedics providing medical care at the scene before you’re taken to the emergency room.

Under these circumstances it is critical, if you are able to, to describe the physical pain and discomfort that you are experiencing while you are at the scene. Hopefully you’ll be able to communicate that information to the emergency room personnel when you arrive at the hospital.

At the time that you are examined by emergency room doctors, if possible, it is helpful if you could provide an accurate medical history. Include any previous treatment for injuries or symptoms to the same areas of the body that were re-injured in this automobile accident.
It is important to point out that the majority of automobile accidents, typically involve significant impacts but do not result in immediate significant pain and discomfort to the occupants of the vehicle that were hit. In those circumstances, it is important to do the following:

1. Contact the police and insist that they prepare a report regarding how the incident happened so that you can confirm at a later date that the collision was not your fault;
2. If the police refuse to prepare a report, then use either your phone or iPad, to obtain an account for the other driver regarding how this incident occurred; and
3. Using those same devices, it is critical for you to either record or photograph the accident scene, depicting the damage sustained to your vehicle both inside and out, and to the other vehicle that caused the accident.

When obtaining the insurance information from the other driver, it is important for you to provide that information to your own insurance company so that they can contact the other driver’s insurance company to arrange for your vehicle to either be repaired or declared a total loss. It is critical that you do not provide a statement to the other side’s insurance company. Those statements can be used against you at a later date to undermine your credibility or any other aspect of your claim.

Typically most individuals do not believe that they have sustained a serious injury immediately after an automobile accident occurs. It is only after the occurrence that the occupants of the vehicle involved in an automobile collision experiences a gradual worsening of their physical complaints including headaches, dizziness, nausea, numbness and tingling in their arm or some fingers, pain in their low back with numbness or tingling down one side of the leg or other symptoms.

These symptoms can begin to occur innocuously but progressively get worse as the effects of the forces exerted upon the individual become more symptomatic.

The last step, and the most important one, is for anyone involved in an automobile accident to seek medical care immediately through the hospital emergency room or urgent care facility available. The injured person should also contact their own primary physician to obtain an appointment within 24-hours from the time that the incident occurs. Any delay in obtaining appropriate medical care for injuries which result from an automobile accident will be used as a basis by the other driver’s insurance company to deny the relationship between your physical complaints and the injuries sustained.

Therefore, if you have any other questions regarding what you should be doing if you or a close family member have been involved in an automobile accident, please contact the Law Offices of Gary Sernaker at (858) 509-0188 or email him at gsernaker@gmail.com