QuestionMy parents were hit head on by a driver who ran through a light (thought it was a ghreen arrow) while coming to my house Christmas eve. Their car was totaled and mom was taken to the hospital with severe chest pains, a bleeding head and unable to breath (she has Athsma). We never found where the blood was coming from on her, but the chest pain was determined to be broken or bruised ribs. Dad had a broken foot & bleeding head but was in no severe pain and so worried about mom he waited to be seen.
They have no medical insurance and we had to return them both to the emergency room two days later. 2 of Mom's teeth fell out a few days later and it was detemined that the bleeding head was actually from inside her mouth, the xrays' showed trauma to all 6 of her top front teeth and they beleive she may loose all of those.
She is still struggling through her healing and has had a setback nearly every week. When she went to the physical therapist last week, her breathing was so bad that her lips were blue and they sent her to the emergency room instead.
They are have hired a lawyer, but now find out they had to settle the car and the medical themselves, apparently the lawyer only does pain and suffering. Not the kind of help they were looking for. They work a seasonal job and had to miss the last 6 weeks of the season because of this wreck. So now they have no permanent income, no car, and are still needing medical attention with physical therapy and 12k dental work, but they are affraid that the guy's insurance is not sufficient. Is there some way to find out for sure? The car they were driving was old and had liability only.
Plus the lawyer who doesn't help them takes 1/3 off the top, then from what they understand ALL of the rest of the claims (including medical) come out of the other 2/3's of any settlement they get, so they are thinking this guys 25k medical policy may leave them owing for medical still.
AnswerHi Brandi,
I'm very sorry your parents are going through this.
Unfortunately, there are only two thing that can happen hers:
1) Hopefully the at fault driver had more than 25k in liability insurance
2) Hopefully your parents auto policy has Uninsured Motorist Coverage. This would help pay over and above the other persons insurance.
Your parents attorney should be helping them with all aspects of this case. He should be demanding a settlement that includes payment of all medical bills, lost wages, pain & suffering as well as future medical bills. He should also try to negotiate lower settlement of the medical bills to help your parents keep more of the money. They should ask the lawyer about all of this. If they are not happy with the answer, they may wanrt to consider looking for another attorney.
I hope this helps
Richard Hixenbaugh
