Miami Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyer
A traumatic brain injury can be one of the most difficult catastrophic injuries for a family to confront. A person may survive a serious accident and look physically much the same as before, yet struggle with memory, concentration, judgment, communication, personality changes, headaches, fatigue, or the ability to work and live independently.
At the most severe end of the spectrum, brain trauma can leave a person unable to communicate, walk, perform basic activities, or care for themselves without lifelong assistance.
These cases require an attorney to understand what the medical evidence means and how a neurological injury affects the person behind the records.
Sotolongo Law represents people throughout Miami and South Florida who have suffered traumatic brain injuries in car accidents, commercial truck crashes, and other incidents caused by negligence. The firm also handles cases involving devastating brain injuries caused by medical malpractice, including injuries resulting from oxygen deprivation.
Miami traumatic brain injury lawyer Attorney Pedro P. Sotolongo brings more than 20 years of personal injury experience to these claims, along with approximately five years of prior experience defending medical malpractice cases. That background gives him an understanding of both the law and the medicine that can be particularly important when representing someone with a serious neurological injury.
Understanding Traumatic Brain Injury
A traumatic brain injury occurs when an external force disrupts normal brain function. It can result from a direct blow to the head, penetration of the skull, or rapid acceleration and deceleration that causes the brain to move within the skull.
Brain injuries vary enormously in severity.
A concussion is considered a form of traumatic brain injury, although many people recover successfully. Moderate and severe TBIs can cause lasting neurological deficits and profound disability.
Different mechanisms can also produce different types of brain damage. Injuries may include brain contusions, hemorrhages, hematomas, swelling, or diffuse axonal injury caused by the stretching and tearing of nerve fibers as the brain rapidly moves or rotates within the skull.
Possible consequences include:
- Memory impairment
- Difficulty concentrating
- Problems processing information
- Impaired judgment and executive functioning
- Speech and language difficulties
- Headaches and dizziness
- Balance problems
- Vision disturbances
- Seizures
- Sleep disorders
- Sensitivity to light or sound
- Emotional or behavioral changes
- Loss of motor function
- Permanent cognitive disability
No two brain injuries affect people in precisely the same way. The location and extent of the damage, the person’s health, and numerous other medical factors can influence the eventual outcome.
Brain Injuries in Miami Car Accidents
A car accident victim does not necessarily have to strike his or her head against the steering wheel, dashboard, window, or another object to sustain a brain injury.
Rapid acceleration, deceleration, and rotational forces can cause the brain to move violently within the skull. High-speed collisions, rollovers, side impacts, and crashes involving multiple impacts can produce particularly significant forces.
Some brain injuries are obvious immediately. A person may lose consciousness, experience seizures, or require emergency neurosurgery.
Others are more subtle.
A crash victim may leave the emergency room and only later realize that something is wrong. The person may repeatedly forget conversations, lose track of tasks, become unable to tolerate noise, experience persistent headaches, or have difficulty performing work that previously came easily.
Family members and coworkers may notice changes before the injured person fully recognizes them.
Prompt medical evaluation is important both for the patient’s health and for establishing an accurate record of symptoms following the collision.
Commercial Truck Accidents and Severe Brain Trauma
Commercial truck collisions can cause devastating head and brain injuries because of the enormous forces involved.
A tractor-trailer may strike a passenger vehicle at highway speed, crush its occupant compartment, force it into another vehicle, or cause it to roll over. Underride and override crashes can produce particularly severe trauma.
A brain injury claim arising from a commercial trucking accident may require investigation of both the injury and the trucking operation.
Evidence may involve electronic logging records, driver qualifications, hours of service, vehicle data, maintenance records, cargo information, company policies, cellphone evidence, and accident reconstruction. Potentially responsible parties can include the driver, motor carrier, employer, maintenance contractor, cargo-loading company, or another business involved in the operation.
When the victim has sustained permanent brain damage, identifying all responsible parties and applicable insurance coverage can be especially important because the financial consequences may extend over a lifetime.
Brain Damage Caused by Medical Malpractice
Not all catastrophic brain injuries are traumatic in the traditional sense. Medical negligence can cause severe neurological damage when the brain is deprived of oxygen or blood flow.
A hypoxic brain injury occurs when the brain receives insufficient oxygen. An anoxic brain injury involves a more complete deprivation of oxygen. Even relatively brief periods of inadequate oxygenation can potentially result in serious neurological consequences.
Medical malpractice claims involving brain damage may arise from anesthesia complications, failures to maintain a patient’s airway, delayed recognition of respiratory or cardiac distress, surgical complications, failures to diagnose or appropriately treat a stroke, medication errors, or other departures from the applicable standard of care.
These cases often turn on complicated medical questions.
What was happening physiologically? When did the brain become endangered? What should the healthcare providers have recognized? What intervention was required? Would timely treatment probably have prevented or reduced the neurological damage?
Pedro P. Sotolongo’s approximately five years practicing medical malpractice defense required him to evaluate these types of medical causation issues from the defense side. Today, that experience helps Sotolongo Law investigate claims for injured patients and work effectively with physicians and medical experts.
The Challenge of Proving an Invisible Injury
One of the difficulties in brain injury litigation is that some of the most disabling consequences cannot be seen from the outside.
A person with a significant TBI may walk into a deposition, carry on a conversation, and appear physically healthy. An insurance company may use those superficial observations to argue that the person has recovered.
But holding a short conversation is very different from performing complex work for eight hours, managing finances, remembering multiple instructions, controlling impulses, or functioning independently every day.
Even diagnostic imaging does not necessarily tell the entire story. The medical investigation may involve neurological examinations, neuropsychological testing, imaging, treatment records, rehabilitation records, and observations from people who knew the injured person before and after the accident.
Neuropsychological evaluation can be particularly important in appropriate cases. Testing may examine attention, memory, processing speed, language, executive functioning, and other cognitive abilities.
The goal is not simply to establish that someone has been diagnosed with a brain injury. It is to demonstrate what functions have actually been lost or impaired.
Personality and Behavioral Changes After a TBI
Some of the most painful effects of a brain injury are experienced by the injured person’s family.
Damage to the brain can affect emotional regulation, judgment, impulse control, motivation, and behavior. A spouse may describe the injured person as fundamentally changed. Someone who was once patient may become easily frustrated. A highly organized person may struggle to complete ordinary tasks. Others may experience apathy, irritability, anxiety, depression, or difficulty interpreting social situations.
These changes can strain marriages, parenting relationships, friendships, and employment.
They also illustrate why testimony from family members, friends, coworkers, and others who knew the person before the injury can become valuable. Medical testing provides important evidence, but people who have witnessed the changes firsthand can help explain how the injury manifests itself in everyday life.
Calculating the Future Cost of a Serious Brain Injury
Severe brain injuries may create needs that continue for decades.
Depending on the person’s neurological deficits, future care may include physicians, medications, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, cognitive rehabilitation, psychological treatment, vocational rehabilitation, and assistance with activities of daily living.
A person with profound impairment may require supervised living or around-the-clock care.
Even individuals who regain substantial independence may be unable to return to their former occupations. Someone whose career depended on memory, rapid decision-making, multitasking, technical knowledge, or executive functioning can experience a major loss of earning capacity despite retaining the ability to perform many ordinary physical activities.
A catastrophic TBI claim may therefore require input from neurologists, neuropsychologists, rehabilitation specialists, vocational experts, life-care planners, economists, and other professionals.
Future losses should be evaluated before a case is resolved. Once a settlement is final, an injured person generally cannot reopen the claim years later because the effects of the brain injury proved more costly than anticipated.
Insurance Company Defenses in Brain Injury Cases
Insurers and defendants may aggressively challenge TBI claims, particularly when the injured person does not have an obvious physical disability.
The defense may argue that symptoms are caused by stress, aging, medication, a previous condition, or another unrelated factor. It may dispute the severity of the original trauma, emphasize normal imaging, question neuropsychological findings, or point to activities the injured person remains capable of performing.
Preexisting medical history may also become a focus of the defense.
Sotolongo Law prepares these cases by examining the complete medical picture. That includes understanding the mechanism of injury, the medical records, diagnostic findings, testing, treatment, prior health history, functional changes, and future prognosis.
Pedro P. Sotolongo’s background defending medical malpractice claims gives him additional insight into how defendants and their experts analyze medical causation and damages.
Personal Attention During a Difficult Recovery
Brain injury cases can be particularly demanding on clients and their families. Cognitive impairment itself may make it difficult for an injured person to organize information, remember appointments, manage paperwork, or understand complicated legal proceedings.
Sotolongo Law’s boutique approach allows the firm to provide personal attention while handling claims against major insurance companies, trucking companies, healthcare institutions, and other powerful defendants.
Pedro P. Sotolongo has more than two decades of personal injury experience, including five years in medical malpractice defense before dedicating his practice to representing injured people.
The firm proudly serves Miami’s Spanish-speaking communities, including Cuban, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Argentinian, and other families throughout Miami-Dade County and South Florida. We want clients and their loved ones to be able to communicate comfortably when discussing complicated neurological injuries and the decisions that can affect their futures.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I have a traumatic brain injury if I never lost consciousness?
Yes. Loss of consciousness can occur with a TBI, but it is not present in every brain injury. A person may remain conscious and still experience neurological symptoms after trauma. The diagnosis should be made by qualified healthcare professionals based on the circumstances, symptoms, examination, and appropriate testing.
Can a brain injury exist even if a CT scan or MRI is normal?
Certain brain injuries may not produce obvious abnormalities on routine structural imaging. Doctors consider the complete clinical picture rather than relying on a single test. Depending on the circumstances, neurological examinations, neuropsychological testing, medical history, symptoms, and other evidence may be relevant.
What is diffuse axonal injury?
Diffuse axonal injury involves damage to nerve fibers in the brain associated with rapid acceleration, deceleration, or rotational forces. More severe diffuse axonal injuries can cause substantial neurological impairment and may occur in high-energy motor vehicle crashes.
Why is neuropsychological testing used in some TBI cases?
Neuropsychological testing can evaluate functions such as memory, attention, processing speed, language, reasoning, and executive functioning. When clinically appropriate, the results can help physicians and other professionals understand cognitive strengths and deficits and can provide evidence relevant to rehabilitation, employment, and long-term functioning.
Can family members help prove how a brain injury changed someone?
Yes. People who knew an injured person before and after an accident may have important firsthand observations about changes in memory, personality, behavior, communication, work performance, or independence. Their observations can complement medical and neuropsychological evidence by showing how the injury affects everyday life.
Contact a Miami Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyer
A brain injury can affect far more than memory or physical function. It can change a person’s career, independence, relationships, personality, and plans for the future. When those consequences may last for years or a lifetime, the legal claim should reflect their full impact.
Sotolongo Law represents people with traumatic and other serious brain injuries throughout Miami, Miami-Dade County, and South Florida. Our firm combines personal attention with more than 20 years of personal injury experience and a medical malpractice background that helps us understand the complex medical evidence these cases demand.
If you or someone you love suffered a serious brain injury because of a car accident, truck collision, medical error, or other negligence, contact Sotolongo Law for a free consultation. You owe no attorney’s fee unless we successfully recover compensation on your behalf.
Because We Care®.