Florida’s Yasser Lopez suffered a traumatic brain injury when an accident involving a fishing spear lodged the spear into his brain, above the right eye, and through the back of the skull. According to doctors, the teen survived the incident because the speak missed major blood vessels in the brain. Lopez’s story is still not finished as the 16-year-old still has much recovery to do. However, his story is giving some Miami brain injury patients hope.
Lopez’s story is not unique, however. There are some cases involving patients who survived devastating brain injuries. For example, in the 1800s Phineas Gage had his head impaled with a tamping iron. While Gage battled infections and suffered a personality change, he largely recovered from his injuries. In 1985, Jackie Nink Pflug suffered brain trauma after being shot in the head during an airplane hijacking. While she survived, her recovery included having to train her eyes to move and having to learn how to tell time and count money. Pflug eventually went on to become a speaker and author. In 1997, Matthew Gross was shot in the head. Since then, he has largely recovered although he still takes seizure medications and he still has trouble controlling his speech.
While these stories may offer hope to patients who have sustained Miami head injuries due to violence, Miami car accidents, or because of other incidents, they are also cautionary tales. Even those patients who do survive these types of devastating injuries require a lifetime of medication, long recovery times, and still find their lives forever changed. Many Miami brain injury victims who sustain very serious brain injuries, however, never recover fully and many do not survive their injuries.
According to experts, the brain is highly adaptable, allowing one area of the brain to take over when an area is injured. This allows some brain injury victims to recover partially from their injuries. The extent to which recovery is possible depends on the type of injury, the area of the brain that is injured, and a person’s own strength of will.
Unfortunately, finances and access to assistance also make a big difference when it comes to recovering from a Miami brain injury. In far too many cases, brain injury patients do not get the help they need in time or do not get all the help they need, which can affect their ability to recover. The story of Danny Rodriguez, for example, is often seen as an example of what happens to patients who do not receive adequate care. Rodriguez survived a gunshot to the head in 2009. However, he was sent home from the hospital before he was even able to use a wheel chair and was discharged from the Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center after only five weeks. Experts believe that he did not get the care he needed to recover as fully as possible.
In many cases, finances affect how much access a person has to health care and rehabilitation. It is one reason why many brain injury patients work with Miami personal injury attorneys in order to secure compensation for their injuries, so that they can afford quality care. If a brain injury was caused by a wrongful or negligent act, Florida law does allow the patient to pursue a legal claim to recover the costs of medical care and other expenses related to the injury.
If you have sustained a serious brain injury, contact the Flaxman Law Group to arrange for a free, no obligation consultation to discuss your case. You may have more options than you realize.