Profiles In Courage: Innocent Personal Injury Victims

In today’s economic times, we hear a lot of discussion about the problems that people are having financially. While many people are emotionally suffering due to rising unemployment and adverse economic conditions, those who suffer perhaps the most during these troubling times are innocent victims in personal injury cases. Our office just settled the case of one young lady, which is a classic example of what we address in this article. Simply stated, this young lady is a living profile in courage.
On the date in question, our client was struck by a vehicle traveling on the wrong side of the road. This could have been a fatality but miraculously the client lived. Even though the client had innumerable orthopaedic injuries and several surgeries to treat the same, and even though her medical expenses were in excess of $150,000.00, the client always remained resolute in the face of these problems. When told that the defendant that caused her injuries had less insurance coverage than the amount of her medical bills, she simply accepted it and recognized that there was little or nothing that she could do about it. We see the prayer “God grant me the courage to change those things that I can change and to accept what I cannot,” and here was a lady who “walked the walk and talked the talk.” She accepted her fate, she dealt with her problems and she was grateful for the gift of life since she had survived what could have been a fatal accident.
Not only did this client experience a very, very painful injury, she had to risk the loss of her job, she had to hang on to her home all while she was going through a failing marriage. Yes it is true that times are tough. Indeed, life itself can be tough. But for someone who is going through troubling times in a slowing economy and a bad marriage, to also have inflicted on them, through no fault of their own and suffer serious personal injuries, is obviously a tremendous burden to bear.
We were very impressed with our client because she always had a good attitude. Yes, she is somewhat angry at what happened to her and yes, she is angry at the person who caused her injuries, but she was accepting of her fate, is grateful that she is alive and is appreciative of the fact that while we could not get her near enough money to compensate her for everything she has endured, at least we got her something via the at fault driver’s insurance. As she stated, there are many people in the world that are far worse off than she is. Yes, this is true. There are many people in the world who are far worse off than she is but there are also many, many people who are much more fortunate than our client. Fortunately, most of us will never have to experience what our client went through, that being the trials and tribulations of an innocent personal injury victim: someone who did nothing wrong, was terribly, terribly injured and then forced to overcome all because of the negligence of a third party.
We salute the courage of all innocent victims of third party negligence who through no fault of their own are subjected to serious and sometimes terrible injuries with sometimes life altering and permanent consequences. These are the heros amongst us which are not known, not seen and usually are not appreciated by the public at large for what they have endured and had to overcome. It is always a pleasure to use one’s professional skills to represent people who are confronted with such problems and we were very pleased that we were able to be of some assistance to this particular client. We were also humbled by the fact that she showed such courage in the face of such adversity. This is a lesson for all of us: Things are not as bad as they may seem. We are all richly blessed to be in a country that does its best through its legal system to address civil wrongs done to others. It may not always achieve justice, but it is the best system in the world for attempting to do so.