Sacramento Brain Injury Lawyer Blog

Way back in 2003, a Truckee man shocked the world with his bizarre injury...and miraculous recovery. The story was so unbelievable that many wrote it off as a hoax, but, in fact, it actually happened.

Up in beautiful Truckee, CA, an adventure-resort town just a few hours north of Sacramento, California, lives a man named Ron Hunt, nick-named the "Miracle Man". In 2003, Hunt was working at a construction site when he fell from a ladder and landed, face first, upon an 18 inch, 1 1/8 inch chip-auger drill bit. The drill went through his eye, pushed his brain aside, and exited his skull by his ear. Tahoe World reports the following:

Just to write the description of the injury gives us the heebie-jeebies. But miraculously, Hunt survived the accident with minimal trauma, losing the eye and having titanium plates installed where the bit went through his skull, as well as some minor nerve damage in the right side of his face.

Amazingly, Hunt survived! The whole world was captured by this story and Hunt was interviewed by many magazines, newspapers, and even television programs, including Good Morning America.

Clearly, God wants to keep this man around for a while!

Please see tahoe-world.com by clicking on this link. There are some amazing pictures you need to see!

Though this article brings us good cheer, many head injuries do not end so happily. Many head injuries result in brain trauma, which can severely damage a person's cognitive ability, making the tasks they did at their jobs before the accident difficult or impossible. Brain trauma can also hurt the victims' family life, and can possibly cause them to become paralyzed. If you or a loved one has suffered a head injury that was not your fault, we can help you. Please call our office at 916.444.4444, or visit our website by clicking this link.

God bless you.

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Brain Injuries are often times either fatal or severely debilitating. A young woman, Anna Kindt, knows the fragility of the brain first hand. Driving her car one night, Anna, lost control of her Honda Civic as she passed another vehicle and swerved into a nearby lawn. Slamming into several trees later, the Civic was left totaled, with a collapsed roof and smashed side.

Anna was rushed to the hospital. Suffering a traumatic brain injury, doctors tried to keep Anna’s brain from swelling.

There is a relatively new method some hospitals have been implementing to prevent serious brain injury and death after an accident such as Anna’s. The method is to place the patient in a state of hypothermia. This method of hypothermia has been show to have some positive effects on an injured brain. For one thing, when a brain suffers an injury, it will produce a chemical that can be harmful to its cells, hypothermia can slow this down. Hypothermia also reduces swelling, which in injured brain can cause severe mental damage and even death.

After 32 days in the hospital and 10 days in a state of hypothermia, Anna was released from the hospital. She has had an amazing recovery. Anna's initial prognosis was a mere 20% for survival and, if she did in fact survive, mental retardation was a guarantee. Although Anna's family says that her personality has altered somewhat with more moodiness and she suffers from memory loss, Anna's beat out the odds by a dramatic amount.

If you have been injured in an accident at someone else’s fault, and have suffered from a traumatic brain injury, please call the Law Offices of Moseley Collins. We are here to help.

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Hypothermia May Help With Severe Head Injuries, Red Orbit

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At our Personal Injury Law Office in Sacramento, we can face the most horrific of acts carried out against an individual. I was reading the news today, when I came across one of those acts in the nearby area of Auburn, California. The story told of a case against a woman for allegedly killing a 16-month old child through shaken baby syndrome.

The accused woman, Veronica Salcedo, was babysitting three children the night of the incident. The youngest child, Hannah, is the center of the case. According to News 10, prosecutors are calling for Veronica to be tried for “second degree murder and child abuse causing death or great bodily injury”. It is their claim that Veronica shook Hannah so violently that the child ended up in the hospital on life support and died two days later.

On the opposing side, defendants state this is not what happened at all, but rather the cause of Hannah’s death was from a neurological undiagnosed illness. They state that there is evidence that the child’s brain was swelling the night before the incident. However, doctors never did the neurological testing for the illness, so there is no way of truly knowing.

Veronica did state that she shook Hannah. However, she states that it was only slightly and just to get her to come to when she found her unresponsive. Supposedly, Veronica had confessed to shaking the child harder when police first spoke to her, but has now withdrawn that on account of a language barrier (Veronica only speaks Spanish).

Shaken Baby Syndrome is child abuse. Shaken Baby Syndrome, or SBS, occurs when a child is shaken hard enough that their brain bounces inside the child’s skull, causing damage or death. This diagnosis usually will occur in children two years or younger. At this age children have weak necks, large, heavy heads, and developing brains. These characteristics put together make an instance of strong shaking very threatening to a baby’s life.

If you have a child who has been diagnosed with SBS because of someone else’s abusive behavior, please call me at the Law Offices of Moseley Collins.

To read the full news article, please click here.

For more information on Shaken Baby Syndrome, please click here.

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I was reading the news today when I came across a story about a young girl who was a part of a car accident 10 months prior. The crash left her in a coma and in critical condition. Two other passengers of the car were killed and the driver, her boyfriend at the time, was also in critical condition. It is amazing how one moment can so incredibly alter the course of one’s life. The young girl, 19-year old Savannah Willson, now is learning to cope with life again, from a different angle.

The car crash was caused by Savannah’s boyfriend, who took part in a sudden street race on his way home from a night out. His car reached speeds of 70 mph, well over the posted 25 mph speed limit. The car lost control in midsts of the race and slammed into a tree. From that moment on, Savannah would see her life change. After a week in a coma, she awoke to find the right side of her body paralyzed. She had suffered brain damage to the left side of her brain in the accident, causing neurons to disconnect. She also was not able to swallow her saliva and doctors had to perform a tracheotomy, which left a tube in her windpipe for 90 days.

Three months after the accident Savannah was able to leave the hospital and had regained partial use the right side of her body. Savannah will continue to undergo physical therapy and rehabilitation to regain use of the right side of her body.

Savannah’s ex-boyfriend is now facing trial for two counts of vehicular manslaughter. Street racing is such a dangerous game to play, especially when others' lives are involved. The lives of loved ones, friends, and even strangers can be alter and/or lost forever.

To read the full article in the Sacramento Bee, please click here.

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I was reading an article in the Sacramento Bee this afternoon on the amount of children that fall out of windows and injure themselves. The article states that thousands of children fall out of windows each year and are hospitalized as a result. That is incredible to me, but it does make sense. Children are so curious, especially at young ages they want to explore everything that catches their eye. An open window is an open invitation for these children to accept. In our Sacramento area alone, doctors at UC Davis hospital stated that over the course of three years, 44 children were hospitalized after falling out of a window.

The Sacramento Bee gave an example of a little girl, Taia Herring, who fell out of a second-story window just days after her third birthday. She was left alone for a moment and out the window she went. Her mom found her on the grass outside, barely conscious. She was rushed to the hospital to find out that she had suffered major brain injury and fractured her femur.

Taia’s parents were devastated, but they held fast to hope and submitted themselves to prayer every day for their daughter. And then her remarkable recovery took hold. Within two months, Taia was able to speak and left to return home. She is still learning to walk on her leg and continues with physical therapy. Her parents say that they know it is the blessing of God that Taia was saved in that fall.

If you have small children take precautions to prevent them from climbing out of windows. This could protect your child from suffering from a major brain injury or even death. Keep objects away from windows that could enable your child to get easy access to the outside. Close windows on the second story or keep close watch on your children when they are playing upstairs.

To read the full article in the Sacramento Bee, please click here.

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A story I blogged about a couple weeks ago on a high school football player has been updated. In Southern California, a high school senior, Scotty, is still in critical condition after he collapsed on the field during one of the high school football games about two weeks ago. News reports state that he actually stumbled off the field and then slipped into a coma. He has been comatose since this incidence.

His doctor informs news sources that Scotty’s injury is due to a traumatic brain injury, very similar to what one would see from a serious car accident. Despite suspicions that the injury was due to a previous hit or accident, Scotty’s doctor says that this injury had to have happen within hours of Scotty reaching the hospital.

Doctors cannot predict how Scotty will, or even if he will, recover. At this point in time, with such a major brain injury, and with Scotty in such a deep coma, it is difficult to see signs of recovery. Over the past couple of weeks, Scotty has only slightly moved the right side of his body and cracked his eyes open once. Unfortunately, this could be due to reflexes rather than signs of improvement.

Students and parents around the area of San Marcos have formed a support group for Scotty. The team had their first game this past Friday, and the stadium, on both sides, were filled with people adorning Scotty’s football number, number 54. There were also fundraisers at the game to help pay for the extensive medical bills that Scotty’s parents will undoubtedly face.

It is such a tragedy to see someone so young go through such horrific injuries. Scotty’s football coaches have scoured videotapes of the game in which Scotty was injured, but have yet found an exact hit which caused Scotty's traumatic brain injury. Let’s pray for Scotty’s recovery and strength for his family.

To read the full article on Scotty’s traumatic brain injury, please click here.

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South of our Sacramento home, in San Marcos, California, a high school football player suddenly collapsed during one of his games. Reports still have yet to fully discover why the teen collapsed, but most likely he suffered a concussion that was not diagnosed right away.

Brain injuries are a serious concern, no matter how little. A concussion is a small brain injury that may not seem to be a very big deal at the time of the accident, but can have lasting and long-term effects. Athletes have many different terms they use to describe a concussion, including; getting your “bell rung”, feeling “foggy”, and “getting dinged”. These terms can make concussions sound pretty innocent, but we should be aware of the impact this mild brain injury can have.

This is important to know and diagnose because a concussion IS a brain injury and deserves special attention. Having one concussion also makes you more susceptible to further concussions in the future. Statistics show that suffering from one concussion will make you 4 to 6 times more likely to suffer another concussion. In addition, the more concussions one suffers from, the worse it is for them. Studies have shown that each additional concussion has an additive effect, amount to more and more damage to the brain each time it suffers from a concussion.

Brain injuries are always a serious matter. If you or a loved one has ever been injured and have suffer from a brain injury, please call me at the Law Offices of Moseley Collins. I am here to help.

Be aware…

To read the full article on this news story, please click here.

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Brain injuries can come from a array of accidents, including extreme sports like skateboarding. We all know how much kids, especially boys, enjoy being out with their friends, scraping elbows and bruising knees. Sometimes, these cuts and scrapes can lead to more serious injuries as well. As a Personal Injury Attorney, I know full well the dangers of these sports. No, I am not telling you to lock your children inside the house, forbidding them to participate in the games, but simply to be aware and give some helpful advice when needed.

One recent skateboarding accident that could have wound up more serious, occurred at the X-Games in Los Angeles, California this month. Skateboarder Jake Brown fell 45 feet off his skateboard at the Big Air event’s quarterpipe, landing feet-first on the flatter part of the ramp. Jake was unconscious for a moment after the fall and suffered from a minor concussion. Had he fallen head first, or had he not been wearing a helmet, well, that would be a whole other story.

So what is the advice here? First of all, if your children are going to be skateboarding, protect them with a helmet, elbow pads, and knee pads. Secondly, if a skateboarder is going to fall on a ramp, he/she should try to slide down the ramp, rather than going for a direct hit on the bottom as Jake did at the X games. If someone does fall while skateboarding and loses consciousness for a moment, take them immediately to received medical attention.

Have fun and play safe...

For more the full article on Jake Brown's accident, please click here.

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South of our Sacramento home, in Modesto, California, a boy was severely injured in a car accident several months ago, suffering from a traumatic brain injury. This week, he is coming home to his family and friends. The boy, Tyler Allen, is going through a long process of recuperation and it will be some time before he is able to regain abilities he had before, such as walking and talking.

The accident, a collision between a semi-truck and a BMW, happened on May 9th. Tyler was sitting in the passenger seat of the BMW. Following the accident, Tyler was taken to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a broken hip, a broken knee, multiple head injuries, and placed in a coma. The driver of the BMW died at the scene.

Often times, the degree of severity for a coma will be described using the Glasgow Coma Score (GCS). The GCS assess several different aspects of a person’s skills, including verbal, eye, and motor responses. The final outcome is a number range from 3 to 15, 3 being the worst and 15 the best. Tyler has scored about a five which indicates a very severe injury.

Let’s keep Tyler in our prayers. If you or a loved one has suffered from a severe brain injury, please call our Law Offices for legal help and advice.

Take care…

Read the full news article on Tyler’s injury and rehabilitation.
Read more about comas.

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The date for the annual California State Fair in our home of Sacramento is rapidly approaching. August 17th the gates will open and remain a place filled with rides, games, and treats until September 3rd. My family and I have always loved going to the fair. You can’t help but feel like a kid again, running around from ride to ride and smelling all the delicious goodies. But along with the fun, amusement parks can at times be dangerous. I just saw a recent article on roller coasters and injuries, in particular brain injuries. At our Personal Injury Law Firm, we know how costly (emotionally, physically, monetarily) a brain injury can be.

The article states that a head or brain injury can occur from the jerking motions of a roller coaster ride. It states that people can be particularly susceptible to this when riding in the dark (for example a tunnel) or when turning their heads while on the ride (for example to see the view, or a parent checking on their child).

Reading other articles, such as one from the Brain Injury Association, roller coasters do not seem to be one of our biggest threats in causing brain and head injury, but nevertheless, we should be aware of the possibilities that exist in a given situation.

If you or someone you love have ever been injured and suffered from a head or brain injury, you should get legal help. Please call the Law Offices of Moseley Collins for advice and assistance.

Have fun and be safe…

To read more about brain injuries and roller coasters see the full news article and the Brain Injury Association website.

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As a Personal Injury Law Firm in Sacramento, California, we see a lot of brain injury cases occurring from various accidents. Sports have been the catalyst for many brain injuries in young people these days. Interestingly enough, the sport that causes the greatest amount of brain injury in young people is not snowboarding as you blast down the mountain or even cumbersome football players slamming into one another, but rather horseback riding.

In the late July issue of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that horseback riding is the number one culprit for causing traumatic brain injury in young people, with ice skating coming in as number two.

The CDC stated that each year about 65% of all sports-related brain injuries occur in people ages 5 to 18. When calculating all ages into the equation, basketball comes in number one, bringing in 603,239 people a year, and bicycling heads up number two with 524,692 people a year.

Traumatic brain injury is nothing to ever take lightly. If you or your child have ever been in an accident and suffered from a brain injury, please call the Law Offices of Moseley Collins. We would love to speak with you about your case and subsequent options.

Until next time…

For more information on sports-related brain injuries, please go to the CDC website or this article.

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At the Law Offices of Moseley Collins, we know auto accidents, motorcycle and truck accidents occur every day in Sacramento and throughout California.

Severe car, motorcycle and truck accidents can leave a crash victim with a traumatic brain injury. As a Sacramento car accident law firm we regularly assist victims who are suffering from a catastrophic brain injury. If you ever find yourself in this position, as an auto accident victim with trauma to the brain, one key aliment to watch out for is vertigo. This will assist your lawyer or attorney in representing you.

According to Dr. Kuljit Singh, “Head injuries from motor vehicle accidents or any other kind of trauma would result in traumatic vertigo. Vertigo occurs when sensation from the inner ear, eyes and sensation throughout the body are mismatched.”

Continue reading "Vertigo: Common in Car Accidents & Brain Injury" »

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