Portland Brain Injury Attorneys

Damages & Legal Responsibility for an Oregon Brain Injury Accident

A brain injury not only changes a victim’s life, but the lives of their family as well. The recovery process is a long, difficult road, and is also very expensive. Portland brain injury victims may need to undergo many surgeries, extensive therapy, or require constant care. When someone else’s wrongful actions result in another person suffering a serious brain injury, a brain injury victim has the right seek the money they need from those responsible to care for themselves and their family after a brain injury accident – which is why it is sometimes necessary to hire a Portland brain injury attorney to help you through the personal injury process.

At Shulman DuBois, our Portland brain injury attorneys offer our legal help to anyone who has been injured because of another’s carelessness. We can help you during this difficult time in your life. Call us at 503-222-4411 for a free consultation.

A brain injury is often catastrophic, and victims can sometimes never fully recover. Unlike most tissues in the body, the brain isn’t able to regenerate its cells. Once brain cells are damaged or the connections between them are broken, the functions they perform are lost, unless the brain learns to perform them in a new way. Oregon brain injury victims usually have permanent problems because of the injury, including difficulty with their senses, movement, emotions, and/or cognitive abilities. Sometimes a person who suffers a brain injury can even experience a severe personality change that may be permanent.

Causes of Oregon Brain Injuries

A brain injury is often caused by a jolt, blow, or bump to a person’s head, or a penetrating head injury that upsets a brain’s normal functioning. A brain injury caused in this way is referred to as a traumatic brain injury, or TBI. The seriousness of a brain injury can range from “mild,” which is defined as a short change in a person’s mental state or consciousness; to “severe,” which is defined as a long period of unconsciousness or amnesia after an injury.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (http://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/), about 1.7 million people suffer a brain injury every year. Of that number, approximately 52,000 die, 275,000 require hospitalization, and 1.36 million receive treatment and are released from the emergency room. The CDC reports that TBIs are a contributing factor in about one-third (30.5 percent) of all injury-related fatalities in the U.S. However, almost 75 percent of the TBIs that occur every year are concussions or another form of a mild brain injury.

Falls are the leading cause of TBIs and account for about 35 percent of total brain injuries every year. Motor vehicle accidents account for 17 percent of total brain injuries, but result in the biggest percentage of fatalities that are TBI-related at 31 percent. People struck by or against an object account for 16 percent of the total, and assaults account for 10 percent. (Twenty-one percent is unknown.)

Types of Brain Injuries in Oregon

There are many kinds of brain injuries, and some common examples include:

• Concussion. This type of brain injury results from a direct blow to a person’s head, by violent shaking of their head, or through whiplash or a similar injury. A concussion can also include bleeding of the brain, skull fractures, or brain swelling.
• Contusion. A contusion is caused by direct impact to a person’s head and is a bruise to the brain that bleeds. Often, large contusions will need to be removed surgically.
• Coup-contrecoup injury. This kind of injury results when a blow to a person’s head is strong enough to cause a contusion at the impact site and also moves the brain while causing it to slam against the opposite side of the skull, which results in another contusion.
• Diffuse axonal injury (DAI). This type of brain injury is the result of the strong rotation or shaking of a person’s head, which causes the brain to trail behind the skull’s movements and results to tears in the brain structures. When this occurs, often brain chemicals are released, which leads to further damage. This is one of the more serious TBIs, with 90 percent of those with a DAI never regaining consciousness. Those who do are often severely impaired.
• Penetrating brain injury. These brain injuries are caused when an object forces bone, hair, skin, and fragments from the object into a person’s brain. This injury can cause the brain to ricochet within a person’s skull or result in the brain tissue stretching and/or rupturing. Penetrating brain injuries often result in death.