Fatal car accident Today in Georgia 2022

A car accident is always tragic, but losing a loved one suddenly to a fatal accident is particularly devastating. You are probably filled with anger, grief, and bewilderment that someone you cared about was injured and consequently passed away as a result of another driver’s negligence. Henningsen Injury Attorneys, P.C. help you recover the damages that you deserve in a wrongful death suit.

What is the most common fatal car crash?

There were 3,631 fatal head-on crashes in 2020 nationwide, which only represented 10% of all fatal car crashes. What makes these accidents so deadly is that the impact force increases as both drivers head toward each other. These accidents usually lead to catastrophic injuries to the brain, spinal cord, and internal organs. Collisions between a motor vehicle and a fixed object were the next most common type, with over 28% of deaths, followed by pedestrian incidents and non-collisions (rollovers, etc.).

Types Of Injuries In Fatal Car Accident Cases

Fatal car accident injuries can occur at the moment of the accident or later on when the victim is healing. Although different types of injuries are caused by car accidents, here are some of the most common types of injuries.

Traumatic Brain Injuries

A blow to the head can cause internal bruising and bleeding in the brain. A diffuse axonal brain injury is the result of the brain shearing during the impact. TBI can also cause brain bleeding and concussion. It is very difficult for loved ones to lose a family member to a traumatic brain injury. We can help you if a loved one died due to traumatic brain injuries.

Spinal Cord Injuries

When a loved one has died as a result of spinal cord injuries sustained in a car accident, then we can help you recover compensation. The spinal cord can become injured either from the impact or broken vertebrae shearing the nerve fibers. Finding out that a loved one died because of these types of injuries is hard, so call us today so we can help take the burden of a personal injury claim off you.

Internal Bleeding

If you have lost a loved one who succumbed to internal bleeding, we can fight for you in a Georgia wrongful death claim. Internal bleeding is caused by the impact bursting the blood capillaries in the internal organs. Another cause of internal injuries is when broken bones from the impact pierce the organs and caused them to bleed. Broken ribs can puncture the lungs resulting in life-threatening injuries.

Broken Bones

Bones can fracture during the accident, piercing other internal organs and leading to internal bleeding. Victims of fatal car accidents can also suffer from bone infections caused by the break. Osteomyelitis is an inflammation or swelling in the bone. It can be caused by bacteria or other infections reaching the bone after traveling through the bloodstream or from nearby tissue. A victim of a serious car accident may succumb to an infection caused by their injuries.

How much does it cost to hire an experienced fatal car accident attorney?

When people think about hiring an attorney, they think about how expensive it will be out of their own pocket. In fact, our personal injury attorneys work on a contingency-fee basis. This means that you do not pay a dime for knowledgeable and highly experienced legal representation unless we win your case for you. We start the attorney-client relationship by offering you a free consultation in which you meet with us and tell us what happened. We provide you legal guidance and determine if you have a valid case. Call Henningsen Injury Attorneys, P.C. today to speak to an Atlanta personal injury attorney and schedule your free consultation.

Most Common Causes of Car Accidents

There are different causes of car accidents but when it comes to fatal accidents, these are some of the most common.

Distracted Driving

Anything can happen in a matter of seconds when a driver takes their hand off of the wheel, looks away from the road, or stops concentrating on driving. A driver could also turn in the wrong direction onto a road and drive toward oncoming traffic. Drivers can prevent these tragedies by not texting, eating, drinking or using drugs behind the wheel, and always staying focused on the road.

Source: CDC

Speeding and Aggressive Driving

Drivers who are more focused on getting to their destination quickly rather than safely can crash into the side of another vehicle or collide with the rear end of a car in front when dangerously zigzagging in and out of lanes. Speeding is the cause of all sorts of car accidents, from intersection accidents (also known as left-turn accidents), side impact collisions, T-bone accidents and rear end accidents.

Source: Curbed

Drunk Driving

A drunk driver slurs their speech, is slow to react to stimuli and is usually sleepy. An intoxicated driver is less likely to check if an intersection or a lane is clear before turning or merging, which can result in side impact collisions and T-bone accidents. When drunk drivers run red lights, they can take a person’s life.

Inclement Weather

Common sense says that when the weather is bad, you should stay off the road and not leave your house if you can. If you have to be on the road, then you must exercise caution by driving slower, keeping more distance between other cars and using signals and your headlights, as required by law in some jurisdictions. The risk of an accident increases in bad weather, but some accidents were still preventable had one or both drivers made different decisions and taken different actions.

Intersection Accidents

Intersection accidents are extremely dangerous because the left-turning driver has to cross lanes of traffic in front of oncoming cars. Drivers making a right turn at a stoplight need to be sure that they have the right of way and that they do not hit any pedestrians or cars making a U-turn at a green light. A protected green light is a green arrow, and an unprotected green light is when the left-turning lane does not have an arrow and instead has a green light, so the driver has to make a judgment call before making a left-hand turn.

Inexperienced Drivers

The majority of teen driver crashes are due to lack of observation, speeding, and distractions. Parents should encourage safe driving practices and teach their children how to navigate in different driving environments to develop critical skills and good judgment when making decisions on the road. Whether you are mourning the loss of your teenager or a loved one who was killed by an inexperienced driver, Henningsen Injury Attorneys, P.C. can help you.

What A Georgia Car Accident Attorney Can Do For You

When a person loses a loved one to a car accident, they find themselves in a position they never wanted to be in. All of a sudden, a person who mattered very much to you is gone. This is already a very difficult burden to carry. If you are wondering how you will pay your bills, and want to seek justice, then we can help.

Access To Expert Witnesses

Lawyers are good at research but nothing compares to working with an expert in another field who could explain how an accident or injury occurred. Because of their practice area, personal injury attorneys develop relationships with people in helpful fields, such as medicine and engineering, who can assist in cases. Serving as expert witnesses, their testimony can be used in court to explain and justify the amount that you’re asking for in damages. For example, a doctor can speak about the Injuries and how they occurred. An accident reconstructionist can explain how an accident happened, which can help establish liability. Our attorneys already have these established relationships and we already know who we can trust to help with your case.

Negotiate With The Insurance Company

In some car accidents there is no doubt as to who the liable party is, but in other cases there is a lot of contention over who is to blame for the accident. Georgia has a comparative negligence system, which means that each driver is assessed for what portion of fault they share for causing the accident. If a law-abiding driver is driving down the road and a drunk driver turns on the wrong road and hits them, then the drunk driver is at fault. If both drivers were doing something behind the wheel that they shouldn’t have, then they could both be held liable for the accident.

Insurance companies don’t want to pay more for fatal accidents, so they will investigate to find out if your loved and was responsible for the crash in any way. If the last place one of the driver’s was seen was a bar but one of the drivers was on their phone at the time of the accident, then there will be debate between both teams of attorneys over who was more at fault – the driver who was drinking or using their phone. Henningsen Injury Attorneys, P.C. has successfully recovered compensation for accident victims in Atlanta and is ready to represent you in front of the insurance company.

Be Your Advocate

Every state has different car accident and personal injury laws that affect different types of claims. The lawyers at Henningsen Injury Attorneys, P.C. understand the traffic laws as they relate to Atlanta drivers, and we are up-to-date on legislation that affects claims. With this knowledge, we can determine what rights you have under the law, how to establish liability, and when the insurance company is not being fair to you.

Damages In A Wrongful Death Claim

Obviously, there is a lot to consider after an accident has led to the sudden death of a loved one. There are legal issues to consider, negotiations to be settled with the insurance company, and the emotional and psychological aspects of the loss. Although no amount of money will ever bring back your loved one, you can receive damages that can help you recover financially.

Economic Damages

An accident can devastate a family that has lost their main source of income. Economic damages in a wrongful death suit make you financially “whole” after your loss. You can be compensated for all of the medical bills your loved one accrued before their untimely death. You can also be compensated for the future lost earning capacity of the deceased individual, which your attorney can help you calculate based on certain factors. You can recover funeral and burial expenses and compensation for any other losses related to the accident. For example, if the wrongful death was caused by a car accident, then the survivors can recover compensation for replacing the vehicle.

Noneconomic Damages

Noneconomic damages compensate you for damages that can’t be calculated easily by adding up numbers from receipts and invoices. Noneconomic damages compensate the surviving family members for the emotional distress that the loss causes, such as loss of enjoyment of life, loss of consortium, and for the pain and suffering their loved one experienced before their untimely death.

Punitive Damages

In Georgia there is a $250,000 cap on punitive damages if the defendant was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the crash, in which case there is no limit. Punitive damages are meant to punish the defendant for their reckless and negligent behavior and deter them from ever making that same fatal mistake again.

Stages Of A Wrongful Death Claim

The first stage in your wrongful death claim is to come to our Atlanta law firm for your free consultation. This is when you tell us everything that happened and provide us all the evidence that you have so far. Once we have determined that you have a valid case, we begin the process of filing your claim to get the damages you deserve. By the end of this meeting you will have an understanding of how the law applies to your case, what we can do for you, and what steps we need you to take.

Next, we start investigating your case by looking into what happened. We can gather footage from traffic cameras, but you need to reach out to us soon because the footage on them is only saved for 20 to 30 days. After that, it is deleted. We also talk to witnesses and gather their statements.

Next, we send a demand letter to your the insurance company for the liable party with the amount that we believe you are owed in compensation for their client’s negligence. Typically we go back-and-forth. Sometimes the insurance company pushes back and in some cases, when there is considerable debate over the facts of the case, it will then be heard in court in front of a judge and jury. We prepare your case to represent you in court.

Proving Negligence In A Fatal Car Accident Case

All drivers have a duty of care to other drivers when operating a vehicle. This means that they are obligated to follow all laws when driving on the road. A duty of care is a legal obligation to act with reasonable care whenever performing anything that could cause harm to another. When it comes to driving, you need to make reasonable judgments that will prevent your risk of an accident injury to yourself or another in an accident.

A person can be held liable for breaching the duty of care or, in other words, for not using a reasonable standard of care, like texting someone and not focusing on the road. It is not reasonable to speed in traffic; that is why a person could be held responsible for breaching their duty of care by not being safe behind the wheel.

You must prove that the other driver’s violation of their duty of care is what caused the accident rather than another cause. Then you must demonstrate that there were losses as a result of the injuries stemming from the breach, most notably the death of your loved one. 

We can help you establish negligence based on the evidence collected. Key pieces of evidence include:

• The police report
• Photos from the scene of the fatal accident
• Your loved one’s medical records
• Eyewitness statements
• Medical bills

Call Now To Speak To A Car Accident Attorney

One of the most important steps you can take to seek justice for the untimely death of your loved one is to talk to a car accident attorney who can defend you in front of the insurance company, which is very likely going to put up a fight so that it doesn’t have to pay damages. You do not deserve to be treated this way after you’ve already lost so much. Call 404-948-6153 to speak to a car accident lawyer at Henningsen Injury Attorneys, P.C. in Atlanta.