A woman died at the scene of a car accident in the Reno area after another vehicle hit her in a “t-bone” fashion as she was attempting to make a left turn. The woman was 73 years old.

According to police who were investigating the accident, the woman had just turned left in an intersection when a car, which was being driven by someone under the age of 18, ran in to the side of the vehicle. Apparently, the other car entered the intersection while the woman was already attempting to make a turn.

Police are still investigating the accident and are trying to locate witnesses, as they say that several people who saw the accident but were not involved directly did not remain at the scene to give statements. Police have indicated that they are not yet sure what role, if any, drugs and alcohol played in this tragedy.

Still, even at this early stage, the circumstances of this accident serve to remind Nevada residents of a couple of items with respect to car accidents. The first is that, even if there is no traffic light, there are still rules governing who gets to go through an intersection first. A failure to yield the right-of-way can lead to a serious or even deadly accident, particularly when a driver blows through an intersection at a high speed without slowing down to check for cross traffic.

Second, given their lack of experience, it is even more important for young drivers who have just gotten their licenses to make sure they are driving carefully and staying alert behind the wheel. When they do not do so, even despite their young age, they and their parents can still be held financially accountable for causing an accident. In this case, depending on the outcome of the police investigation, the family of the victim will want to explore this option.

Source:  Reno Gazette Journal, ” Woman dies in south Reno crash ,” Feb. 16, 2018.

A previous post on this blog talked about the most common types of spinal cord injuries. The common theme is that no matter the cause, these sorts of injuries can leave a Reno, Nevada resident unable to walk or, in the worst cases, even move his or her arms.

Dealing with the aftermath of these sorts of injuries is a complicated business on all fronts. For instance, on the legal front, even if it is clear that someone else is at fault and should pay the victim compensation, how much should be paid is often a subject of hot debate and can be hard to calculate.

In these sorts of situations, it is important for a spinal cord injury victim to have the help of an experienced advocate who can make sure they get all of the compensation they deserve. In this respect, our law office has five decades of experience with handling accident cases, including those involving spinal cord and other serious injuries.

Because we limit our practice to these types of personal injury cases, we’ve been able to hone our negotiation and trial skills. We understand how the other side might try to defeat a valid claim or, at least, try to pay less than what they really should. We work hard to locate and preserve the medical, financial and other evidence we need to support our client’s claims.

Although we consider ourselves skilled and shrewd negotiators, we also understand that sometimes, it is just not possible to secure a deal for our clients that will compensate them adequately. That is why we always prepare each and every case as if it were going to be tried before a judge or jury.

As this blog has discussed on previous occasions, even relatively minor spinal cord injuries have serious and lifelong consequences for their victims. An injury to the spinal cord will generally mean a Reno, Nevada resident will need medical care and therapy, as well as help covering their lost income if they are no longer able to work.

There are many different cause s of spinal cord injuries and paralysis. However, the most common cause is vehicle accidents. Among all spine injuries that occur each year, accidents involving cars, motorcycles or other motor vehicles account for over half of them.

It is also significant that alcohol is frequently a contributing factor to accidents ending in spinal cord injuries, with alcohol playing a part in one out of four such accidents. This number would include those accidents in which a drunk driver injures a person severely.

There are other common causes of injuries to the spine. For instance, particularly among those who are older, falling down is a common cause of spinal cord injuries. Collectively, falls account for about one in six of all new injuries to the spinal cord each year.

Rounding out the common causes of spinal cord injuries are injuries related to sports accounting for about 10 percent of injuries, with intentional violence, like shootings and stabbings, accounting for about 12 percent of injuries.

Whether related to a car accident or not, a Nevada resident who has suffered a spinal cord injury will likely need financial help both for immediate expenses and to cover the years of recovery ahead of them. They may be able to do so via a personal injury lawsuit filed against the responsible parties.

There is nothing quite like the feeling that one gets when riding their motorcycle. The wind in your hair, the freedom of the open road – it’s all very poetic. However, motorcyclists can be affected by a less-than-poetic event if they are involved in a motorcycle accident. Often, other drivers are to blame either partially or completely for the motorcycle accident and the resulting injuries.

There are lots of motorcyclists located in the Reno area, which isn’t surprising since the weather is fair enough most of the year to utilize and ride motorcycle. If you or your loved one has been impacted by a motorcycle accident injury, you may or may not be aware of just how severe they can be. Beyond the immediate medical expenses and medical care needed – it can turn a person’s life completely upside-down. An inability to work isn’t uncommon after suffering injury in a motorcycle accident. Even the health status of permanent disability can set in, causing a person to frame their whole life differently.

At Bradley Drendel & Jeanney, we have seen the horrors that are associated with motorcycle accident injuries and how it impacts people in our community including the injured and their families. Oftentimes a passenger vehicle, or any type of larger vehicle, makes a mistake on the road that causes the motorcycle accident and injury. It could have been carelessness or even more serious behaviors, like intoxicated driving, that could lead to this result. This is what, in the legal world, is often known as negligence. Even more serious behaviors like DUI can result in not only civil issues for the accused, but criminal as well.

While criminal charges in a motorcycle accident will not determine the civil outcome – it can help with the proceedings. For example, if the party suspected of DUI is convicted, that bodes well for the negligence case as they have a lower standard of proof than do criminal cases. This means that, most likely, the case would decide in favor of the injured when, in a criminal case, the person accused of DUI was convicted. However, in the opposite situation, if a person is not convicted of a drinking and driving related crime, the lower threshold of proof could still find negligence with a preponderance of the evidence.

An injury to a person’s spinal cord can be a devastating and life-altering experience. While some individuals may eventually recover from their harm and live lives comparable to what they enjoyed prior to sustaining their injuries, others may never recover. Nevada residents who have endured this traumatic form of injury may be aware that there are two general categories of spinal cord injuries , being complete spinal cord injuries and incomplete spinal cord injuries.

A complete spinal cord injury is one in which the victim has no feeling or other sensory experience below the site of their injury. For example, if the victim suffered an injury to their lumbar spine and had complete loss of movement and sensation in their legs, their injury may be considered complete.

If, though, the victim’s lumbar spine injury did not result in a complete lack of sensation below the site of their trauma then their injury may be classified as incomplete. An incomplete spinal cord injury suggests that the victim has some nerve impulses still traveling through the site of their injury and that some movement may be possible.

Both complete and incomplete spinal cord injuries are serious. Individuals who suffer from these forms of extreme harm may need assistance and medical treatment for the rest of their lives. As previously discussed on this Reno personal injury legal blog, living with a spinal cord injury can be very expensive and overwhelmingly burdensome on the individual who is unfortunate enough to suffer from such losses. Victims of spinal cord injuries can often find financial recompense through lawsuits based on their personal injury damages.

Accidents between vehicles on Nevada roads often occur because of negligence. Negligence is the failure of a person to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances. When it comes to driving, reasonable care may involve avoiding driving distractions, following traffic signage and laws, and maintaining one’s calm when conditions are challenging.

When two vehicles collide it may be the case that one of the drivers was completely responsible for the accident. For example, if a driver is stopped at a stop sign and the other driver drives directly into the back of the victim’s car then the second may be completely at fault for the crash.

Now, however, imagine in the same scenario but that the first car had defective rear brake lights. If there were no glowing red indicators on the back of the car it may have been more difficult for the second driver to determine that the first car was stopped. Though the second driver should have taken precautions when approaching the other car and may have seen the stop sign at the intersection, it is possible in this expanded scenario that the first driver and presumptive victim contributed to the incident by driving a car with defective lights.

This is where comparative negligence comes into play. In Nevada, a presumptive victim cannot recover their damages if it is found that they were more than 50 percent responsible for the harm that caused their losses. In our above scenario, if a court found that the presumptive victim was 60 percent responsible for the crash due to their defective brake lights and the other driver was 40 percent responsible then the victim may not get their damages at trial.

The state’s comparative negligence law is more complex than discussed herein. Readers should talk to personal injury attorneys about their car accident cases and how the comparative negligence law may impact their ability to recover.

When a Reno resident suffers an injury to their spinal cord they can experience a range of traumatic and life-changing symptoms. They may find that their mobility is impacted if their injury causes paralysis or tetraplegia. They may discover that their coordination is diminished due to harm suffered to their neurological system. These are only a few of the many ways that a spinal cord injury can impact the functionality of their body.

While many of the complications that individuals suffer after spinal cord injuries are physical, victims may also suffer psychological, social and emotional harm from their injuries. For example, the physical symptoms of their injuries may decrease their abilities to engage in the activities of their pre-injury lives which, in turn, may manifest in reductions of their quality of life.

Diminished physical functionality can also impact a person’s ability to retain a job. The trauma suffered by a spinal cord injury victim may prevent them from returning to the work that they did before they suffered their harm and may keep them out of other possible lines of work. The inability to earn an income can impact the victim’s psychological health as well as financial capacity to thrive.

There is rarely an easy path out of a spinal cord injury , but medical professionals suggest that early treatment and care after such an injury can be imperative to reducing the physical and related symptoms that can indefinitely plague the life of a victim. Because of this it can be important for victims of spinal cord injuries to seek compensation for their losses so that they may receive the best possible treatment and care for their devastating afflictions.