What Happens In An Accident With Many Injured People?
Michael Babboni
Car Accidents
One of the most traumatic things a person can experience is a car accident that results in an injury. But it becomes worse and much more complex when a larger accident occurs and multiple vehicles and people are injured.In the simplest cases, where only two vehicles and two drivers are involved, it’s a matter of discovering who is at fault, and then pursuing a personal injury case to get financial compensation for the injuries sustained. Because of the complexities of this type of incident, it’s important to get an auto accident lawyer to be both a guide and an advocate during this experience, even when the outcome itself is simple.A proper investigation by a professional can get to the bottom of who is at fault and why.
But when there a vehicular accident with many people and vehicles, as you can imagine, things get much more elaborate and drawn out. This has consequences for everyone, including the people that are injured and trying to get compensation for what has happened.
Determining Damage
In a simple case of personal injury, you would consult with your auto accident lawyer, and together you would work out an appropriate amount for damage that would be put forward in a civil lawsuit against the offending party. In most cases, the other party would not be paying out his or her own pocket, but the damages, if found in your favor, would be handled by the insurance company that the other party signed with.
Things change a lot in accidents involving many people. A multi-vehicular accident, for example, can easily have more than one driver that may be at fault for the final results. In such a case, fault may be “shared” and an investigation may ultimately determine that the blame lies with two or even more parties, at different percentages. One driver may be 40% at fault, while another is 20%. This means that a personal injury lawsuit may be pursued against multiple people.
The same is also true of the accident victims that have suffered injuries. In an instance, where, for example, a bus carrying passengers gets into an accident, there are many variations for how financial compensation is determined. If the bus driver is at fault for the accident, and passengers are injured, then the bus company itself may be responsible for paying out damages, and this may mean that each individual passenger is entitled to a unique sum, or that all of them “draw from a common pool” of insurance money that is equally divided up between them.
In the case of multi-vehicle accidents involving different people, once again, specific circumstances apply. Different injured accident victims may be working separately with different auto accident lawyers to determine damages against specific people at fault. However, it’s also possible that there may be one large “pool” of damage from which financial compensation is drawn.
All of which is to say that while single vehicle collisions can be complex in executing a personal injury case, when multiple vehicles and injuries enter the equation, the complexity jumps up and order of magnitude. You’ll definitely need an experienced lawyer to navigate what can be a confusing experience.