If you have been injured in an accident at work, in the street, or in any other public place, your immediate thoughts will turn to making a full recovery. This could involve hospital treatment, time away from work, and even the emotional distress of not being able to provide for your family while convalescing. If anything, you will start to feel in the way, and you may begin to subconsciously make unfounded concessions about who was to blame for your injury, so as to brush things under the mat as quickly as possible and turn the spotlight away from you.
Although perhaps noble in one way, any action taken to resist the attention that comes with the severity of the situation may in fact be letting the guilty party off the hook, which could mean further injury to more people down the line. That’s why the first thing to note about how NOT to handle a personal injury is a failure to take the proper course of action in holding the guilty party responsible (see more at Maggiano Law).
Do NOT talk to the other side or their insurers
Try as we might to make the world a home worth living in, not everyone out there has your best interests at heart as much as you’d like to think. It’s ‘dog eat dog’ out there, and that means the third party or their insurers may try to speak to you before you have spoken with a lawyer. Any statement that you make to the third party or to their insurers about your accident can – and most likely will – be used against you, as you may be ‘set up’ into making ambiguous statements that could be taken out of context (whatever you do, do not verbally confirm that you accept liability before speaking to a lawyer!).
Do NOT self-medicate
If you have been involved in a serious accident that was not your fault, the feeling of being scrutinized for your part in the injury can lead to you playing the event over and over in your mind. In turn, this can lead to feelings of anxiety, depression, unworthiness, frustration, and depending on the nature of your accident, even Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). That is why it is important to follow the advice of a doctor regarding any medications following your accident, as you may not even realize that you are potentially making your state of mind worse through any unsupervised self-medicating.
