Fatal Injury Lawyer - Accident Compensation Advice
An accidental fatality is usually a catastrophic event altering the lives of the victims families forever. Our fatal injury lawyers will ensure that you get a fair deal. Your personal injury lawyer will deal with your fatal injury legal claim using a contingency fee arrangement and if you don't succeed in receiving a settlement then your lawyer won't get paid. If you would like speak to a fatal accident lawyer to find out if it is possible to claim a settlement, just call the helpline or complete the contact form or email our offices. A lawyer will telephone you immediately with free legal advice.
Fatal Injury - Overview
The first aspect of a fatal injury to understand is “what is a fatal injury”? Is it an injury in which someone dies right away or can they die of an injury years later and still have it be a fatal injury? Many organizations have a set cutoff date of about 30 days to call the injury a fatal one. This means that a person can be injured and can linger for up to 30 days before dying and still can be said to have died from a fatal injury. Another definition put forth by an insurance company was that a “Fatal injury means a personal injury resulting in the death of the injured person”.
Fatal injuries are not as common as one would think. In the Australia, with a population of more than 20,000,000, less than 10,000 patients died during a recent year from a fatal injury. Fatal injuries can be true accidents or from intentional injuries. Accidents include motor vehicle accidents, sports-related accidents, occupational injuries or falls and miscellaneous injuries. Intentional injuries include the range of homicidal injuries from gunshot wounds to knife wounds to the wide range of ways a person can kill another person.
Motor vehicle accidents are the major cause of fatal accidents, although the advent of seat belts has improved the fatal death rate. Fatalities in the early 1970s before seat belt laws, a total of 4.5 people per 100 million people died on the roadways. More recently, that number dropped to just over 1 person per 100 million people died from traffic accidents. This is because fewer people are ejected from the motor vehicle. Airbags also made a difference in reducing motor vehicle deaths.
Motor vehicle deaths can be broken down into occupant/driver deaths, non-occupant deaths such as pedestrian deaths and motorcycle deaths. Motorcyclists and pedestrians tend to do more poorly than occupants of motor vehicles that are somewhat protected by airbags and seat belts. Among passenger vehicle accidents, those who were in the vehicle were 52 percent more likely to die if they were unrestrained.
The definition of a roadway departure crash is a non-intersection crash where a vehicle crosses an edge line, a center line or leaves the travel way. It includes intersections at interchange areas. Types of crashes involving roadway departure crashes include running off the road, crossing the center line or median, going airborne or hitting a fixed object. Intersection accidents include non-interchange intersection or intersection-related accident.
The number of occupational fatalities amounted to about 400 workers in 2012. Fatalities occurred in the private construction industry, which amounted to about 80 workers in 2012. There were always fatalities in industry, including in mining, foundry work, fishing industries, and miscellaneous industries. Men outnumber women to a great degree when it comes to fatalities at work, most likely due to the nature of their jobs.
There are numerous people who die in sports-related accidents. Some sports are more dangerous than others. The list below involves all sports in which a person died an accidental death. The list is lengthy:
- Football players
- Bobsledders
- Boxing injuries
- Bull fighting injuries
- Canoeing injuries
- Cyclist injuries
- Hunting accidents
- Race car driving crashes
- Jockey deaths
- Skiing deaths
- Parachuting deaths
- Polo deaths
- Motor boating deaths
- Mountaineering deaths
- Underwater diving deaths
- Horse accidents
- Hockey deaths
- All terrain vehicle accidents
Most of these deaths involve collisions with other players while they are playing with proper gear although a few were not playing with the gear necessary to keep them safe. Some were driving vehicles, such as all-terrain vehicles and race car deaths, while some were on horses, such as riding accidents and jockey crashes. What these sports injuries have in common are high impact and high speed. These are forces from which the human body can be defenceless at times, especially when the sporting injury is the result of not wearing the gear necessary to keep the player as safe as possible.
Some gear that can prevent a sporting fatality include helmets that protect the delicate brain from getting injured secondary to a collision or crash. Seat belts are a good thing in any sporting activity that has to do with a vehicle. Sometimes, even gear can’t help. Parachuting accidents can be the result of a poorly packed parachute or secondary to a simple accident. Hockey players are usually wearing gear as a mandatory part of their playing career and yet some still die of hockey-related injuries. Of course, pick up games of hockey among teens generally doesn’t lend itself to the proper safety gear.
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