Being in a Homestead T-bone collision or head-on crash is already devastating. Any collision can be frightening, but the trauma can be even more intense if you are misdiagnosed after your car collision.
Misdiagnosis after a car crash can lead to complications and can prevent you from getting treatment in a timely fashion, which can lead to permanent injury in some cases. For example, if you have a head injury and this is missed in an ER, you could be sent home only to suffer life-altering brain injury symptoms because you did not get help in time.
Misdiagnosis and Homestead Traffic Crashes
There are many reasons why misdiagnosis can happen after a car crash:
- Some symptoms may not be present yet: Soft tissue injuries and head injuries, especially, may not have any symptoms right away. But even sprains and smaller fractures may not be obvious at first. Emergency room staff have an obligation to carefully examine car collision patients to ensure there aren’t serious and dangerous injuries requiring immediate care. Since some symptoms may not develop right away, it’s a good idea to see your primary care physician for a follow-up soon after any car crash.
- There may be many people in the emergency room: After a Homestead chain reaction collision or any crash involving many injured passengers, emergency rooms in the area may be full. Currently, COVID-19 patients and protocols can also make hospitals busier. Staff should make accommodations to ensure every patient gets the proper care. When medical facilities fail to do so, patients can be misdiagnosed or may not get timely treatment.
- A patient may not be conscious or may be disoriented: When a patient is rushed to an emergency room after a collision, they may not be able to easily communicate with medical staff and emergency responders about their medical condition, which can affect diagnosis.
Emergency room doctors are supposed to be aware of the risks and are trained what to look for. When they are negligent in their duty, patients can suffer serious and even life-threatening complications.
Seeking Help
Unfortunately, if you are rushed to the ER after a serious car collision, you may not be in any state to communicate with emergency room doctors. You may not even be aware of your treatment. If you have been misdiagnosed and that misdiagnosis was caused by negligence, however, you may have a medical malpractice claim against the Homestead hospital and other liable parties.
To prove medical negligence, you must show that another ER physician, operating in the same circumstances, would have made a different diagnosis. You must show that the misdiagnosis was caused by negligence rather than a simple mistake.
Obviously, this is challenging to prove unless you have access to medical experts. In fact, many patients who are misdiagnosed in the ER are not initially aware of it, since hospitals rarely admit to wrongdoing or negligence. For this reason, if you have had any diagnosis issues or any serious injuries or complications after an ER visit, it can be useful to speak with a Homestead medical negligence claims attorney to determine whether you have a case.
You can always contact Flaxman Law Group at 1-866-352-9626 (1-866-FLAXMAN) for a free accident consultation with a Homestead emergency room injury claims attorney to determine whether you may have a claim. Our legal team works with a network of medical experts, investigators, and other professionals to help build cases.