How Accidents Shaped Me

I felt drawn to this prompt because I’ve had the opportunity to work with cases that are related to a motor vehicle accident for over 5 years as well as having personal experiences that have quite literally shaped my life. I was born in Mexico and came to the United States when I was 11. I’ve experienced car accidents in both countries, and in Mexico, it is completely different. Seatbelts are not enforced the way they are here, so we didn’t know much about safety. We were rear-ended in a minor collision by a reckless driver, however, we ended up paying all of our medical bills instead of creating a claim since insurance is not required to have it. Years later, my family decided to make the move north to the United States. November 12^th of 2017 was the day that my mom and little sister got in their crash. They were t-boned by a drunk driver who ran a red light. That day had been a pretty normal one, my sister had begged my mom to let her go to a party and after multiple requests, she finally caved in on one condition, that she would be picked up at 11:00 PM. When that time rolled around, she asked if I wanted to come along but I was too busy watching my TV show. I actually hold this day very close to my heart, because even though it was a day of hardship, equally I felt just as lucky. I always sit in the front passenger seat of the car, and Valery was used to sitting right behind me. That day, out of habit, she went straight to the back seat and so that meant my mother was left alone in the front. When the accident happened, the adverse hit my family’s car right in the front passenger’s side, from the pictures I saw later, that side was completely demolished. To think that if I would’ve decided to go on that day, it could be in question whether or not I would be alive today.

My mom broke both of her arms holding on to the steering wheel so tight, she broke her nose when the airbags deployed and suffered a huge concussion. My sister fractured multiple ribs and also suffered from a concussion. We had no idea what do to after a car accident, being fairly new to this country meant that our insurance paperwork was confusing, and we did not feel comfortable calling the police. Luckily, a woman decided to pull over after she saw the collision and explained to my mother what she needed to do. Looking back at this experience with the knowledge I have now, I wish I could go back in time and be a tool of encouragement for my mom and the proper instructions on how to handle her case. I would advise her to immediately get a police report and a lawyer, I would urge her to get the medical care that she needed and to not deny that ambulance ride. She ended up losing her job due to being unable to pay her medical bills and because of the physical and mental toll that this accident took on our family. To this day, she has not been in that same intersection where the accident happened.

Years later, I began working for a medical management company. I took on the role of a Traumatic Brain Injury case manager and began working mostly with personal injury claims. I communicated with the attorneys and paralegals to help their client get into treatment after a concussion that was diagnosed from an MVC. I quickly learned that TBIs are one of the most overlooked claims and that attorneys are afraid to deal with them because they worry that they may not be able to prove it to the insurance companies. I was able to see a whole new world of PIs, how and why cases move along a certain way, and why attorneys do what they do. Their team is there to help clients who are lost and scared that they will not be able to go back to normal. I dealt with a lot of angry customers who acted that way because the concussions changed them. I wish that my mother would’ve been able to participate and get treatment for her TBI after her accident. If anything were to happen, I now feel prepared to counsel my friends and family on what the proper steps are after a motor vehicle accident so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes that were once made.