So this personal post is going to be another rant. I’m sorry. But if you are interested in learning what to do after being in an vehicle accident, you will learn from this article as well.
My wife was involved in a pretty bad car accident about a month or so ago. While she was driving to downtown Los Angeles she came to a stop on the freeway and looked up in her rear view mirror to observe a young woman driver looking down at what she can only assume was her cell phone and coming at her at about 40 miles per hour.
There was nothing she could do and the driver of the other vehicle never even looked up before hitting my wife’s car.
Okay, so that was the setup.
I work in a building on Turnberry in Valencia where there are several professional business’s. Because there is someone in our suite that is a personal injury attorney, I naturally just knocked on his door. He said not to worry about it and he would take care of it.
Over the next couple of weeks I would check in with him every week to see what we should be doing and asking what is being done. I assumed he was taking care of it as he stated.
Then my wife and I started noticing something.
The Chiropractor where she was going after the accident said she could not get a call back from the attorney and that several weeks had gone by.
So we went to the attorney’s office and spoke with his partner who I was told by the other attorney was handling the case. I walked in and asked what information they needed from us for the accident. He says, “what accident?” I said, “you guys are handling my wife’s accident!” (my wife is standing right next to me). Then, in the most rude manner you can think and with a disgusted look on his face, he says, ” I have no idea what you are talking about.”
This was the attorney who the chiropractor had called for weeks without any answer.
What made me mad is how rude he was. Think of the person in your life you hate more than anything and that would be how he looked at us. And we were supposedly their clients AND i have worked in the same building as them for 4 years.
I just couldn’t get over how rude he was. The other attorney was in a meeting so I left a message on his phone and told them we would be looking for another personal injury attorney for our accident and explained how disgusted we were with his partners behavior.
The worst thing is that they never gave us any advice during this entire process.
So my wife contacts another personal injury attorney in Valencia and has a consultation. During the consultation, this attorney cannot believe that we were not provided with any advice on how to handle the car accident.
Here is what was explained to us about how to handle the car accident. (none of this was told to us by the previous attorney and would have been helpful being right after the accident)
Advice Given From Valencia Personal Injury Attorney
- Take time off of work if needed – When my wife got in her accident she was in a lot of pain. But she felt she needed to go back to work. This is despite the fact that my wife had a concussion and was nauseous from the concussion. This new attorney said she should have taken all the time off she needed because the loss of wages is recoverable. Had we known that, my wife would have taken time off instead of going back to work the next day. over those days and weeks immediately following the accident, she even put aside her chiropractic care for work even though she was in so much pain.
- Go to a real doctor – Not saying other doctors are not real, but my wife immediately went to a chiropractor right after the accident to get adjusted. Our family is religious about chiropractic care. But she did not immediately go to our Valencia Kaiser until she began feeling super nauseous. After encouraging her to go (where she learned she had a concussion) she was told to take time off work and that rest was needed. The personal injury attorney said that you should always go to a MD to have your condition checked out after the accident. So we did this part correct.
- Take pictures of the accident – My wife did this perfectly. She took numerous photos of both vehicles showing the damage that occurred. The attorney said this was helpful.
- Get a police report – When my wife called me from the scene of the accident, she said that a police officer witnessed the accident and was handing it. Being that I am retired LAPD I knew that a report should be taken. It turns out that the police officer that witnessed it was off duty and did not work that area so no report was taken. What should have happened is that he should have called for the CHP to come out and take an accident report. Fortunately, this was a rear end accident so the blame is obvious, but in other types of accidents this might not be the case.
- Hire a Valencia Personal Injury Attorney – It is not about being compensated for being injured is it is getting good advice on what to do immediately following an accident. Had we had the information that was provided to us on day one, we would have handled thing differently. My wife would have taken the time off necessary to get treatment and feel better before going back to work.
You want to know what pisses me off the most? I provide so much free information to people going through divorce in California with all our videos, podcasts, free consultations, etc. I explain to people everything they need to know and usually am not compensated for it and most of the time don’t even know who the people are who watch our videos, etc.
Then, when my family needs help, we don’t get it. We hire a personal injury attorney to give us advice and take care of us and it does not happen. We trust that someone has our back, especially since we work in the same building and have known each other professionally for years.
But even without all that, common courtesy and decency dictates that these things happen anyways.
Shame on you. You know who you are. And when I called you out on it, you didn’t even take the time to walk to my office and apologize. You want to pretend that everything is okay.
Wait until our paths cross in the building. I will let you know exactly how I feel about you.
Point of story? Don’t assume that your friends and colleagues have your back. Do your due diligence and find someone that will take care of you. Don’t assume that everybody will do what you would do.
I treat my clients like I treat my family and anyone else for that matter. I greet the person who cleans the toilets in our building the same way I greet anybody else.
I did not want to give names here, but if you are interested in knowing who we ended up with for our personal injury attorney in Valencia just shoot me an email. My wife very much liked her.
End of rant.
