Deciding Not to Go to the Hospital Doesn’t Mean there Isn’t an Injury
It happens all the time. Defense doctors earnestly testify that our client "couldn’t possibly" have suffered an injury because they didn’t go to the hospital right away, refused an ambulance and/or were able to walk or drive away from the scene.
It's particularly appealing to the defense when there's an "invisible" injury like a concussion where a lot of the evidence is indirect or circumstantial.
But the severity of an injury isn't measured by the person's medical decision-making after it.
He walked away from a 400-foot fall. Drove to town. Called 911. And he had a traumatic brain injury.
This isn’t a one-off event. Historically this happened all the time. Quarterbacks like Troy Aikman tell stories about how they don’t remember entire games.
At this point both science and experience reveal just how disingenuous it is for defense doctors to claim that someone wasn’t injured just because they didn’t go straight to the hospital.