Michigan Soft Tissue And Broken Bone Injury Lawyer

Michigan Personal Injury Attorneys for Fractures, Sprains & Soft Tissue Trauma

If you were in a car accident or in some way sustained an injury due to somebody else’s negligence, it could be challenging to seek compensation. When the injury cannot readily be seen after an accident, a successful case is even harder to build. Soft tissue injuries are painful and can be long-lasting, causing your medical bills to rise. Negligent drivers or store owners in slip-and-fall accidents need to be held accountable for their actions to help cover your expenses. If you need an attorney to help with your case for seeking compensation for fractures, sprains, or soft tissue injuries, Matz Injury Law can fight for you.

What is a Soft Tissue Injury?

Soft tissue injuries affect the muscles, tendons, and ligaments and result from trauma. They usually occur quickly due to a sudden or sharp movement or a misdirected step and may become secondary to other serious injuries in some cases. Some examples of soft tissue injuries include bursitis and back injuries like herniated discs.

A “soft-tissue” injury may indicate a more serious problem. If you’ve been in an accident and suffer from a tingling sensation in an arm or leg, persistent pain, numbness, or pain radiating outward from one place, you should seek medical care as soon as possible. You may be able to file an insurance claim following an accident and receive compensation for this type of injury.

Causes of Soft Tissue Injuries

Soft tissue injuries can occur in a multitude of ways. The most common of these include the following:

• Sports participation, often due to sudden trauma
• Daily activities, including walking, gardening, working out at the gym, etc.
• Accidents, including auto crashes and slip-and-falls, often due to another party’s negligence

Classifications of Soft Tissue Injuries Based on Severity

There are three classifications based on the severity of a soft tissue injury. These classifications help with the diagnosis, treatment, and projected outcomes of soft tissue injuries. To determine the severity of a soft tissue injury, a medical professional should assess the degree to which the muscles, tendons, or ligaments are stretched or torn and the resulting impairment level experienced by the injured person.

• Mild (Grade I): The least serious of the three classifications, Grade I includes the severe stretching of ligaments, resulting in minimal swelling and tenderness. You may also experience minor instability (e.g., knee joint). Healing will typically take anywhere between one and two weeks.
• Moderate (Grade II): This intermediate grade consists of partial tearing of ligaments, causing moderate tenderness and minor instability. You may feel pain and experience issues when putting weight on the affected area. Recovery time is typically about three to four weeks.
• Severe (Grade III): Severe soft tissue injury involves the complete tear of ligaments, resulting in significant pain, moderate to severe swelling, discomfort with movement, and severe instability. Medical care and treatment are required. Recovery time will vary and may take months or longer.

Our experienced soft tissue injury attorneys understand these differences and know how to prove them in an insurance claim. We will obtain the necessary evidence to build your car accident case and represent you before the insurance companies. Seek a free case evaluation today.

What Does a Soft Tissue Injury Feel Like?

While so much may be happening in the aftermath of an accident, tuning in to how your body feels is imperative. Doing so can make all the difference in how soon you seek medical evaluation and treatment, how soon you will heal, and what you can include in your insurance claim.

When soft tissue damage occurs, there is usually immediate pain accompanied by swelling, although that swelling is not always present immediately. You may also feel stiffness.

The injured area will most likely be sensitive to touch, often due to bruising. If it is an ankle, knee, or hip injury, you may experience difficulty putting weight on the area as you stand or walk. 

Long-Term Consequences of Soft Tissue Injuries

Identifying, diagnosing, and treating soft tissue damage as soon as possible is essential to recovery. If not, problematic consequences can occur. Some soft tissue injuries can be permanent or long-lasting, causing discomfort or difficulty doing normal activities, and may interfere with your quality of life.

In some cases, a Grade II or III soft tissue injury can be determined to be catastrophic. The demining factor here is that there is a clear potential for the suffering of permanent or long-term effects. For example, there could be nerve damage or damage to your blood vessels.

The body is intricately designed, with different parts supporting or in some other way serving the others. As a result of this complexity, soft tissue injuries can cause an accident victim to lose muscle function, suffer chronic pain or numbness, lose muscle strength, and more.

Long-term consequences may also include an inability to return to the same type of work or physical activity as conducted before the accident and injury. Ongoing treatment may be required, which can be time-consuming and costly, consisting of physical therapy, occupational therapy, in-home health aides, or nursing home care.

Types of Soft Tissue Injuries

The most common soft tissue injuries in accidents include the following.

Whiplash

Whiplash often occurs in auto accidents when an individual’s body is suddenly forced forward while the cervical area (neck) remains stationary. This force can violently stretch the ligaments and tendons from the neck to the upper back. You may not know you have whiplash until several days after the automobile accident when you first experience pain and stiffness. Other symptoms may include headaches, numbness, ringing in the ears, and problems with concentration and memory.

Contusions

A contusion is a bruising injury to your soft tissue and often occurs due to blunt force from a blow, fall, or kick. Symptoms most often include swelling, pain, and skin discoloration in the area. 

Sprains

A sprain may sound like a minor personal injury, but it can be serious in some cases and cause problems for you now and later on. If you suffer a sprain, there is an abnormal stretching or partial tear to a particular ligament. These tears can commonly happen in an accident where a sudden twisting, wrenching, or rolling occurs. The most common locations for this type of injury are wrists, knees, and ankles.

Torn Ligaments

In some cases, a ligament can be torn completely and require surgery to repair. Ligaments are fibrous bands of soft tissue that connect and stabilize your bones. Two common tears include within the knee’s ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) and the PCL (posterior cruciate ligament).

How is Soft Tissue Damage Diagnosed?

If you think you might have soft tissue damage, a standard X-ray will not be able to identify the actual issue. However, X-rays can help show any abnormal spacing between bones, which can be a clue for a soft tissue injury in the area.

More than likely, however, you will require an MRI for a solid diagnosis. The benefit of an MRI is that it can provide a clear cross-image of the injured area and pinpoint the location and type of injury.

Do Soft Tissue Injuries Heal on Their Own?

Some soft tissue injuries can heal independently and leave you with minimal problems. How long it takes for these injuries to heal will naturally vary due to several factors, including:

• Health and age
• Type of injury
• Location of injury

However, certain damages, including ligament tears such as ACL or PCL, will likely need surgery and physical therapy to restore their original function.

What Happens if I Need Surgery for a Soft Tissue Injury?

In some cases, you might need to undergo orthopedic surgery for the soft tissue injury. Torn muscles, ligaments, and tendons frequently require surgery, as well as lesser injuries that continually cause problems. Usually, physical therapy comes after the surgery to build or restore function to normal.

Surgery, however, is costly, and working with an experienced Michigan lawyer who can obtain the compensation you need and deserve will be critical. This compensation can help pay your medical bills and cover lost wages from missing work during this trying time.

Which is Worse: Fracture or Sprain?

Both fractures and sprains are common in various types of accidents, and both can cause discomfort. However, in many instances, a sprain has been reported to hurt more than a fracture and, depending on the location, can often take longer than a fracture to heal. Knowing the differences helps you seek medical care to determine which one you suffer following an accident.

Sprains

When a ligament within a joint is either stretched or partially torn, you suffer from a sprain. The most common locations of sprains are the ankles, knees, and wrists.

Sprains can have more apparent symptoms than fractures. At first, you may think that you have broken bones. The following are the most common sprain symptoms:

• Localized pain and swelling
• Mild bruising
• A limited range of motion in the affected joint

Strains

Strains are a separate category of injury to muscle tendons or ligaments and are most often the result of force, excessive stretching, or overuse. Common symptoms include severe pain, swelling, skin discoloration, limited range of motion, and muscle spasms.

Fractures

Common causes of fractures include motor vehicle accidents, slip-and-falls, and sports-related trauma. Medical assessment and treatment will be essential to heal correctly.

Symptoms can include:

• Swelling or bruising
• Deformity in the injured location
• Pain with increasing pressure in the area
• Inability to move or use that part of the body
• Protrusion of the bone through the skin

Let Us Handle Your Michigan Insurance Company

After seeking necessary medical attention, you should also speak with an experienced Michigan personal injury lawyer. Your insurance company may resist paying for adequate medical treatment by trying to minimize the severity of the problem. Without legal help, you may not get the compensation you deserve.

At Matz Injury Law, we help people get medical care and compensation for soft-tissue injuries, including fractures and sprain injuries. We have extensive experience in these cases and work hard to help our clients get all the medical attention, physical therapy, and other services they deserve.

Some injury cases require additional steps. For instance, you may need to send a settlement demand letter. Your car accident lawyer will prepare this type of letter to let the other party know what is considered a reasonable settlement for the claim without the need to go to court.

For this, your Michigan accident attorney will include thorough information on liability and damages (both economic damages and non-economic) for your claim. Depending upon the circumstances of your case, the document can be several pages long, outlining specific details and chronologies.

The Difficulty of a Soft Tissue Injury Claim

Soft tissue injury insurance claims are among the most difficult to file successfully. An insurance adjuster may try to offer less than you deserve for your settlement. Here are some reasons why pursuing a soft tissue injury claim can be difficult and why legal representation will be beneficial.

Limited Medical Evidence

Determining the severity of soft tissue injuries is a challenge. You will need medical evidence that you sustained this type of injury, how severe it is, and what treatments you must undertake. Make sure you save all your medical records and information on doctor’s appointments to help build a personal injury case to prove your claim.

Causation

Insurance companies often argue that soft tissue injuries were not the result of an accident but part of your existing medical history. As such, you must provide evidence to support your claim that the injury is accident-related. To help with this, take photos of the accident scene and keep thorough records.

Statute of Limitations for Soft Tissue Injury Settlements in Michigan

Every type of claim has a set timeframe for filing called the statute of limitations. If you fail to file within the statute of limitations, you usually give up your right to file. According to Michigan code 600.5805, the statute of limitations is three years for personal injuries, such as soft tissue injuries. To be precise, it is three years from the date of the accident that directly caused your injury.

What Factors Affect Your Soft Tissue Injury Settlement?

Soft tissue injuries will be hard to prove, but it starts with proving negligence. Here are the most common factors affecting your soft tissue injury settlement.

Proving Negligence

Michigan is a no-fault insurance state. It adheres to comparative negligence laws, meaning to file a personal injury claim for damages, you must provide proof that the other party was at least partially responsible or at fault for the accident. To do so, your personal injury attorney will need to prove the following four elements:

• A duty of care existed for the at-fault driver
• There was a failure (breach) to meet that duty in some capacity
• Due to that failure, you sustained an injury
• Actual harm or injury occurred with damages

Extent of Your Injuries

Another factor that will affect the damages you receive will be the extent of your injuries. Medical evidence will be essential to obtain the settlement you deserve to cover current and future medical expenses. This evidence will come in the form of an initial diagnosis, medical treatment costs, physical therapy expenses, and, if applicable, surgical and ongoing therapy fees. If you suffer serious impairment to any body function, this will also be a factor to bring into your accident claim.

Policy Limitations

Selected insurance policy limits will also factor into your available settlement amount. While you receive lifetime medical coverage under Michigan’s no-fault law, these policy limits can play an essential role in a lawsuit where you claim negligence on the part of another. Michigan drivers often select the minimum insurance limits available, which can complicate receiving your requested settlement amount.

Insurance

In addition to policy limitations, the insurance company you are negotiating with can influence how much you ultimately receive. Insurance companies continue to downplay and even try to discredit such injury types and will try to offer the lowest settlement possible.

Using an Attorney

Without seeking legal advice from an experienced attorney, you may be tempted to accept the first settlement offer from the insurance company just to get it over with and move on with your life. However, this first offer is rarely fair to you, and the amount may not even be enough to cover all your current and future expenses. A personal injury lawyer will negotiate on your behalf with these insurers while understanding the process and what is available to you. Studies show that, on average, accident victims with legal representation in personal injury cases receive a higher payout.

What Compensation Can I Seek For a Soft Tissue Injury?

Because this is a personal injury claim, you can seek certain types of compensation for your injury after an accident. These include medical expenses, pain and suffering, and lost wages.

Medical Expenses

You can seek medical expenses to cover all medical bills for treatment and care already received, as well as for those you expect to receive in the future as a result of the injury. These expenses include emergency room care, doctor visits, treatments, physical therapy, and more.

Pain and Suffering

Pain and suffering, including emotional distress, ongoing or chronic pain, anxiety, and even PTSD, is essential to your compensation claim. While it is more difficult to calculate a monetary value for non-economic damages, your attorney will be familiar with the process and know how to seek the maximum amount available for your level of pain and suffering.

Lost Wages

If your soft tissue injury prevented you from returning to work at full capacity, you can seek lost wages for that time away.

Preventing Soft Tissue Injuries

Sometimes, a soft tissue injury cannot be prevented. You never expect to be involved in a vehicle accident, yet it happens, and soft tissue injuries can occur.

For causes other than a car crash, you can take steps to decrease your chances of suffering such injuries. For example, you can start stretching before any sports activity and avoid the overuse or overextension of muscles and ligaments as much as possible.

Also, get enough rest and stay hydrated as much as possible. Fatigue in any form can put you more at risk for injury.

Focused on Your Future

No one plans to be in an accident and sustain fractures, sprains, or soft tissue injuries. Unfortunately, accidents happen, and filing a claim for damages can quickly become complicated. If this happens to you or a family member, you can count on the personal injury attorneys of Matz Injury Law for help. Everything we do is focused on you and your future following an accident. 

When we meet with you (whether in-person or via Zoom), we’ll listen to you and your concerns, explain the legal process and the issues in your case, and show you what we can do to help you get medical care and compensation.

Getting you medical care is our number one priority. If you don’t have a doctor, we can help you find the right doctor and receive the care and treatment you need without being burdened by insurance company delays or restrictions on your doctors.

We’ll also identify all possible sources of compensation. This could include Michigan no-fault insurance, uninsured/underinsured coverage, workers’ compensation, liability insurance of the other driver, the insurance covering the owner of the at-fault vehicle, and policies covering you, your family members, and others.

We’ll handle all aspects of your case to give you the time to focus on healing. Our firm will communicate directly with insurance companies and adjusters and manage your benefits, medical bills, property damage claims, and other documentation.

We seek total compensation. At Matz Injury Law, we will work tirelessly to help you get full compensation for all your losses, including medical costs, lost wages, and pain and suffering.

We won’t leave money on the table. We’ll try to resolve your case for the maximum value of your claim. During the legal process, we’ll provide constant updates, inform you of important developments, and provide supportive counsel at the right time. 

Call our Michigan law firm today at 1-866-22Not33 or submit our online contact form to schedule a free consultation.