Boston Car Accident Lawyer Blog
According to a recent news report from ABC 40, two people were hospitalized after a four-car accident in Western Massachusetts. The accident occurred at an intersection around noon.
Emergency crews arrived to find three cars heavily damaged and one car that had sustained minor damage. One of the drivers sustained serious injuries and was taken to the hospital. Another driver was taken to the hospital with what were described as non-life-threatening injuries.
Two other drivers and two passengers refused treatment when asked by paramedics if they needed to go the hospital. It has been reported that one of the vehicles ran a red traffic signal, and that may have been the reason for the crash.
As your Boston car accident attorney understands, you should never refuse medical attention if you have been in an automobile accident if offered by the paramedics, EMTs, police, or firefighters. You may not realize the extent of your injuries or even whether you have any injuries at all.
It’s very common for people who been involved in a car accident to realize days or even weeks later that they were injured. If you develop a health condition some time after the accident and you did not seek treatment at the time of the accident, it may complicate your injury lawsuit by making in harder to prove your injuries were the result of the car accident and not some other unrelated health condition.
If you go to the hospital at the time of the accident, there will be a medical record created that may be very helpful at trial. Doctors may also discover an injury through routine testing that you would not normally become aware of until weeks or even months after the accident.
Another issue that should be noted is, if it can be proven that the at-fault driver ran a red light and thus caused the car accident, it may make it significantly easier to prove a case through what is known as negligence per se. Negligence per se is where the conduct that is alleged to be negligent also constitutes a violation of a law or municipal ordinance.
In this case, running a red light is a moving violation, so it may be hard to claim you did not engage in negligent driving while you ran a traffic signal at the scene of the accident. In order to help prove this at trial, you want to make sure that you get the names of any witnesses to the accident and get their contact information so you can provide that information to your attorney. You may not be in court, depositions, or settlement discussions for months after the accident, and, at that point, it may be extremely difficult to find witnesses who were not identified at the time.
While it may be extremely difficult to find witnesses, it is not necessarily impossible, because your attorney’s accident investigator may be able to speak to people who live and work in the area and learn the names of witnesses. It is obviously better if the plaintiff can get the names at the scene of the accident.
If you are injured in an accident in Massachusetts, call Jeffrey Glassman Injury Lawyers for a free and confidential appointment: (617) 777-7777.
Additional Resources:
Two People Transported Following Four-Car Crash in Longmeadow, August 20, 2014, ABC 40
More Blog Entries:
Woman Run Over by Own Car at Massachusetts Hotel, June 26, 2014, Boston Car Accident Lawyer Blog