Houston Soft Tissue Injury Lawyer

Occasionally, we suffer from soft tissue injuries such as strains or sprains as a result of trauma from accidents. While some soft tissue injuries recover and heal faster, some have a long path to recovery. To recover from some of these soft tissue injuries, you may have to use costly treatment plans and this can hurt you financially as these injuries may make you unable to work.

If your soft tissue injury is a result of an automobile accident, an accident at the workplace, or a result of somebody’s negligence, you may be able to pursue compensation for medical bills accrued and other related expenses through personal injury claims. At Sutliff & Stout Injury & Accident Law Firm, we have decades of experience in handling personal injury cases with an impressive success rate. Our Houston soft tissue injury attorneys will guide you through the whole process and treat you with kindness and respect while aggressively handling your soft tissue injury claim.

What Is a Soft Tissue Injury?

According to John Hopkins Medicine, soft tissue damage is trauma to any skin, muscle, tendon, or ligament in the body. They are neither fractures nor are they injuries to internal organs like the brain, stomach, or intestines.

The following are the most reported soft tissue injuries according to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS):

• Sprains: These are injuries that specifically affect a ligament and are caused by twisting or extreme rolling of the area. Most of this type of injury occurs at the knees, wrists, and ankles.
• Strains: Such injuries come from overuse or extreme stretching. It involves tearing off a muscle or tendon and therefore, surgery might be necessary if the damage is severe.
• Contusions: This injury results from blunt force trauma applied to the area during a fall or an accident. It is a medical term for bruises caused by tendons, muscles, or ligaments.
• Tendonitis: It is caused by consistent severe stresses that repeatedly aggravate the tendons, hence causing them to swell. Persistent inflammation causes damage to the tendon and this may necessitate corrective surgery.
• Bursitis: Repeated small stress and overuse can cause the bursa in the hip, elbow, knee, ankle, or shoulder to swell. Bursa is a small sac located between a bone and a tendon or muscle and is filled with fluids.

In case of a soft tissue injury, you need to seek prompt medical assessment and care to avoid further damage.

The Severity of a Soft Tissue Injury

Soft tissue injuries are categorized into three grades in terms of severity.

Grade 1

It is the mildest case of soft tissue injury and you can recover quickly from it. Such kinds of injuries heal faster since they involve damage of about 10 percent to the ligament or muscle.

Grade 2

These injuries take a little longer to recover and heal. It involves the tearing of 10 to 90 percent of ligaments and as such, it can take longer to recover. The path to recovery involves physical therapy and cortisone injections.

Grade 3

This grade represents the most severe soft tissue damage and has a long recovery path which is characterized by injections to control inflammation, a long period of immobility, and a longer physical therapy period as well as invasive surgery. Grade 3 injuries involve 90 to 100 percent of the ligament of muscle which means complete tearing or rupture of the muscle or ligament.

The Challenge of Proving Soft Tissue Injuries

One of the greatest hurdles in pursuing compensation for soft tissue injuries is that it doesn’t show up with diagnostic tools like X-ray machines. This does not mean that muscle tears are not painful and a derailment to an individual’s lifestyle. However, without hard-to-refute proof or evidence like x-ray scans, the at-fault party and their attorneys can argue that you may not be as injured as you claim.

Additionally, the at-fault party through their defense attorneys may argue that the injury resulting in the claim happened from a pre-existing condition or wear and tear on the victim due to the aging process. Because of this, establishing causation can be challenging and complex in soft tissue damage cases and it might involve the use of expert testimony to solidify the case.

Therefore, it is important to get a prompt and thorough medical assessment and care as this is not just important for your recovery, but also for the personal injury claim. Medical records can serve as stronger proof of an injury when pursuing compensation for soft tissue injury.

Getting Fair Compensation for a Soft Tissue Injury

While most soft tissue injury cases rarely end up in trial or get a fair settlement, it is important to pursue compensation in case of such an injury. The best strategy for getting fair compensation is having thorough documentation of the injury and detailed information on the course of treatment.

If your soft tissue injury claim has the potential for high damages, you might need to hire an expert to testify at deposition about what caused the injuries. This differs significantly with smaller claims where you will only be required to provide relatively convincing proof of the accident type. Therefore, if the at-fault party is not taking your soft tissue injury claim seriously or you are getting obstacles to a fair settlement, it is important you hire the services of an experienced personal injury lawyer.

Contact Experienced Texas Personal Injury Attorneys

Establishing causation in a soft tissue injury claim is complex and challenging, and it requires a lot of experience, time, and resources to resolve. To get fair compensation from the at-fault party, you need to hire skilled and experienced personal injury attorneys to help you through the whole process. Sutliff & Stout Injury & Accident Law Firm has years of experience working on soft tissue injury claims, and our team of personal injury lawyers is dedicated and motivated to see your case to completion.

Recovering from soft tissue damage can be hectic and challenging financially, and that’s why Sutliff & Stout Injury & Accident Law Firm is here to help you get fair compensation. We have obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements on behalf of our clients. Give us a call at (713) 987-7111 or complete our contact form today.