The expression "personal injury" is used to refer to a wide range of injuries sustained in various types of accidents. Such injuries include whiplash sustained by people from car accidents, broken ankles caused by slipping and falling on pavements, cases of cerebral palsy among patients arising from medical negligence, and many others. Personal injuries can be felt in different forms, both psychologically and physically.
Such injuries include injuries sustained at work and work related complications such as handling of harmful chemicals or materials; stress-induced psychological illness; traffic accident injuries and injuries resulting from use of defective goods or services or when people trip over pavement stones. Additionally, personal injuries may arise as result of child abuse and other related misconducts or as result of erroneous administration of of drugs or vaccine to patients by medical practitioners. In the same magnitude, victims of crime sustain physical or psychological injuries whereas discrimination and harassment at workplaces subjects employees to psychological injuries.
As there are diverse forms of personal injuries, personal injury claims are convoluted and may be highly time-consuming. Many people who suffer personal injuries usually require adequate time to recover, but due to inconveniences such as financial constraints and lack of awareness about the magnitude of their problems, they usually find themselves going back to work or resuming their normal duties, which only worsens the injuries. However, this is wrong practice: people have to make personal injury claims in order to facilitate an allowance for recovery time without having to worry about financial difficulties or any other obstacles.
Making personal injury claims is and important step in helping victims to recover from the injuries and may also help to avoid recurrence of similar problems in future. For instance, a claim against an injury sustained in a car accident at a black spot may necessitate erection of mirrors on the highway, which may help avert occurrence of accidents in the same spot in future. In deed, many people involved in personal injury claims do so to avoid recurrence of the injuries to them or others.
Personal injury claims for abrupt incidents such as road accidents have to be reported immediately or within 72 hours after occurrence of the incident. This is because the sooner the case is reported, the better the chances of securing compensation. Although it is good to report personal injuries immediately they are sustained, it is recommended that victims of traumatizing incidents such as car accidents take some time to report. This is because immediately after the incident, victims are usually depressed and may not report the details of the accidents adequately.
In reporting the details of personal injuries, victims have to jot the relevant details appropriately, including specifics of how the injuries affect their daily activities. Victims of personal injuries can claim compensation twofold: against special damages or general damages. Compensation for general damages is paid in regard to injury such as pain or other form of suffering and the value is usually decided by courts. On the other hand, compensation for special damages is usually based on the financial losses suffered by victims of injury from the time of injury to the day when the case is heard in court.
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