Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer

Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Attorney Sebastian Gibson

The Right Choice in Injury Lawyers in Palm Springs and Orange County

If you’ve been injured in a car accident in Orange County or Palm Springs or anywhere in the Coachella Valley or Southern California, it’s all about making the right choice of who you want to represent you in your claim against the other driver’s auto insurance company. May we suggest Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson.

When you call our offices, you’ll speak to Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson, not to a paralegal, and not to someone in the mail room tasked with making a haphazard determination of whether or not you have a case worth handling.

While some car accident attorneys only handle one or two car accident cases per year while the bulk of their practice is in another area of law, Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson is first and foremost a car accident lawyer who focuses his expertise on representing injured accident victims of auto, truck, motorcycle, bicycle and pedestrian accidents.

We specialize in car accidents and serious injuries and we know how insurance companies act and what tricks they employ to try to pay as little as they can for the injuries you’ve suffered in a case like yours. With well over 40 years of experience representing car accident victims with serious injuries in California and with years of experience as well in London, Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson has gained a wealth of respect for his talent, his understanding of the needs of his car accident clients, and his knowledge of how to obtain the results his clients deserve.

Over the years Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson has helped thousands of accident injury victims and recovered millions and millions of dollars including numerous million dollar plus settlements, some without even having to file suit. When we take on a case for an injured client, we feel confident we can get you compensated not only for the value of your car or its repair (for which we take no fee) and for your medical bills, pain and suffering and wage losses all on a contingency fee basis which means you won’t pay any fees or costs unless your accident case is successfully settled.

With offices in Palm Desert and Orange County, Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson is able to offer clients representation for their accidents and personal injury cases throughout California from San Diego to the San Luis Obispo and from Newport Beach to the Coachella Valley.

The Most Important Things To Do After A Car Accident (To The Extent You Are Able to Do So After You’ve Been Injured)

1. Check your passengers and the other driver for injuries in order to make sure they’re okay and to render aid if needed.

2. Get medical assistance (call 911 for an ambulance or paramedics) for yourself and anyone else injured or who thinks they may be injured.

3. Call the police and ask the responding traffic collision officer to prepare a report after letting them know of any injuries. Don’t fall for the other driver’s plea not to involve the police or their promise simply to pay for your car repairs.

4. Take photos of the scene while the vehicles are still in their positions following the impact if possible, and after they’ve been moved, take pictures of all the vehicles from every angle. Also take photos of debris in the roadway and any other damage to property.

5. Obtain the names, addresses, phone numbers and insurance information of all the parties and the contact information of any and all witnesses to the accident and to any statements made by the parties.

6. Write down any admissions of fault by the other driver(s) in the accident. Ask them why they did what they did if they aren’t volunteering any information.

7. Go by ambulance or paramedics to the hospital for emergency treatment for your injuries if you or any passengers are in pain and you have health insurance, Medi-Cal, Medicare, medical payments coverage on your car insurance or you feel certain you were not at fault and that either the other driver has car insurance or you have uninsured motorist coverage.

8. Assuming the above, go to the hospital emergency room the same day as the accident if possible, if you’ve declined an ambulance or treatment for your injuries by paramedics.

9. Follow up with a doctor as soon as possible being seen in the emergency room for your injuries.

10. Call Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson for a free consultation before speaking to any insurance company or allowing them to take a recorded statement.

The One Mistake Car Accident Victims Should Not Make Prior to Retaining A Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer

The biggest mistake a car accident victim can make is to attempt to deal with the other driver’s insurance company on their own, believing that an insurance company will recognize their moral duty to act fairly with them. Unfortunately, the reality is quite different.

Auto Insurance company adjusters are trained to ask you questions that will provide them with the ammunition to offer you less than you deserve for the injuries you’ve suffered from your car accident. A simple admission that you didn’t look both ways once a light turned green can result in an insurance company blaming you for an accident when their own driver ran a red light.

Even though you have no control over what a doctor or hospital charges for treating your injuries, an insurance company will claim the charges aren’t reasonable or that they are mostly diagnostic charges which do not constitute actual treatment.

They will claim that your medical records are inadequate, the billing was done improperly and that your doctors treated you excessively. Your past medical records will be obtained to look for any previous injuries or treatment to the same parts of your body and if found, any previous injuries will be blamed as the cause of your current symptoms and pain.

Most car accident victims simply do not know how to respond to such arguments, but an experienced car accident attorney does and can respond with quite a few arguments on your behalf as well.

Additionally, after a car accident victim goes so far as to attempt to negotiate their own settlement with an insurance company, many car accident lawyers won’t take the case when the victim finally decides to retain an attorney. The problem the attorney faces is that the car insurance company has now become entrenched in their evaluation of the case and simply retaining an attorney will no longer bump up the value without proceeding to mediation, arbitration or trial.

What Type of Accident or Injury Is An Accident or Injury For Which You Need To Retain A Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer? Do You Have to Have Serious Injuries?

Any type of accident in which you’ve been seriously injured is one in which you should hire an experienced accident lawyer. If you’ve suffered injuries in a car accident, motorcycle accident, truck accident, bicycle accident, pedestrian accident, or you’re the victim of a dog bite, you should at least have a free consultation with Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson.

If after seeing a doctor only once and you’re absolutely pain free, you had no fractures, your car suffered only minor damage, and some weeks have passed since the accident, you probably don’t need an attorney. However, you should still call our office so we can give you some guidance over the phone and give you our analysis of your case.

But if your vehicle was seriously damaged or you were a pedestrian or riding a bicycle when the car accident occurred, or if you were seen at the hospital or you’ve been receiving treatment and your symptoms haven’t disappeared, you’re probably going to need ongoing medical treatment, and you would benefit greatly by the guidance of an experienced car accident lawyer.

The Difficulties of Dealing With Auto Insurance Companies After You’ve Been Injured in Orange County or Palm Springs

Auto insurance companies have become more and more difficult to deal with over the years, whether you’ve had a major impact causing your vehicle to be totaled and suffered catastrophic injuries or a car accident that’s caused just a thousand dollars worth of damage and some neck or back pain. And this is the case even where there is no question the other driver was at fault. If there is any question of liability, you can expect even more trouble trying to get the auto insurance company to accept liability for the accident.

It also makes no difference whether your accident was in Palm Springs or Palm Desert, in Newport Beach or anywhere in Orange County.

There is one situation in which you can expect smooth sailing with an insurance company these days. That’s if you are willing to accept a nuisance value settlement of $250 or $300 and sign a full release of all claims before you even know the extent of your injuries or the extent of any treatment that will be necessary. When we see this type of injustice has occurred, it is simply heartbreaking to a car accident lawyer and the accident victim in our office when we tell them how much more their case was worth.

It’s not simply nuisance value settlements made by unrepresented car accident victims that are disheartening. It’s people with broken arms or legs who settle for $5,000 or motorcycle accident victims with brain injuries who settle for $10,000. It’s truck accident victims and families of loved ones who have been fatally injured who settle for what they believe are policy limits, not realizing there is an even larger layer of insurance coverage on that big rig truck that struck their family member.

If you’ve been injured in a car accident, motorcycle, truck, bicycle, scooter or pedestrian accident, or even in a robotaxi, Lyft or Uber and you’ve required treatment for your injuries, you’re more vulnerable to more serious injuries the next time you’re in a car accident or injured in any other type of vehicle collision. An insurance company, however, won’t put any extra value on your likelihood of further injury in the future.

And if you do have another car accident in the future, just to add insult to injury, an insurance company will argue that some if not all of the treatment you need for your future injury is due to your previous accident (the preexisting condition argument).

Although car insurance companies place a higher value on a car accident victim’s case when he or she has immediate pain and takes an ambulance to the hospital, it is just as common for a person in a serious car accident not to feel pain at the scene of the accident only to feel excruciating pain from their injuries hours later, the next day or over the next several days when the endorphins and adrenaline have worn off an no longer mask the pain.

Additionally, some injury victims will develop an entirely new area of pain such as hip pain or knee pain when they compensate for an injury to their back or leg and walk differently, causing injury to this different part of their body.

The best advice we can give to an injury victim is to follow their doctor’s advice, within reason of course. Some doctors have been know to overtreat. Others have been known to recommend over aggressive and unnecessary treatment. That’s why it’s important to have an attorney you can talk to in order to get their opinion of what would be good for your case and in the event a surgery is being considered, to suggest getting a second opinion from another doctor.

The Different Types of Car Accident Crashes and Injuries That Can Result From An Accident in Orange County and Palm Springs

Rear End Crashes – This type of car accident often causes a whiplash injury which results from a person’s neck being forcefully thrown forward and backward resulting in a painful injury.

Side Impact (T-Bone) Accidents – These car accidents often result in a person’s head striking the metal frame inside the car, a side window or a passenger’s head. The result of such a car accident can be a traumatic brain injury as well as muscle sprains and strains, fractures and soft tissue damage.

Auto accident injuries can be as little as a few scrapes and bruises, to sprain and strain injuries, torn muscle ligaments, fractures, neck and back disc injuries requiring surgery, brain injuries, psychological injuries and in catastrophic accidents, the death of the driver and possibly the passengers as well.

It is common with a serious neck or back injury to experience symptoms of numbness and/or tingling in one’s arms and legs and to have pain that radiates down to one’s hands and fingers or down one’s legs.

A serious accident can also cause injuries to one’s hips and knees when seats collapse or one’s knees hit the dash of a car in a crash.

Motorcyclists and bicyclists suffer an injury most car accident victims do not – road rash. While helmets have cut down on the severity of head injuries, as with the helmets worn by football players, helmets will not prevent a head injury in a serious collision with a car or truck. It’s not surprising that motorcyclists incur a higher magnitude of severe and fatal injuries than any other type of traffic collision.

Pedestrians frequently suffer traumatic brain injuries and fractures when they’re struck by a car and violently thrown over the hood and onto the ground.

The most common type of injury an individual in a car accident suffers are soft tissue injuries. The force of coming to a sudden stop, being rear ended and tossed around in one’s car only to hit the head rest, window, door frame or another passenger can place a great amount of stress on parts of the body. Soft tissue injuries result in pain, stiffness, muscle spasms and even swelling.

Hard injury examples are fractures, damage to one’s ligaments or cartilage, the rupture of a disk in your cervical, thoracic or lumbar spine, the dislocation of vertebra, and damage to bones and structures in one’s knees, hips, shoulders, arms, legs, hands and feet. Any damage to your spinal cord is extremely serious and should be evaluated by a specialist who will likely refer a spinal cord injury patient for multiple MRI’s. A spinal cord injury is a permanent injury. While neck or back surgery may reduce the pain caused by a spinal injury, the damage to the spine remains and may worsen.

Concussions are another symptom of car accidents. While less common, they can be more dangerous when severe and may be only one symptom of brain damage or a traumatic brain injury. Signs to look out for include changes to one’s sleep patterns (for instance sleeping more than usual), mood changes, headaches, blurry vision, an inability to concentrate, nausea, dizziness, memory problems, and a lack of energy, among others.

Additional Injury Advice for Car Accident Victims in Palm Springs and Orange County Who’ve Suffered Injuries And Who Are Experiencing Pain or Stiffness

If your injuries include bruises, cuts or an injury to any part of your body that shows externally, take frequent photos of your injuries with your cell phone. Don’t worry about the quality of the photos. Cell phones today have very good cameras and we can blow up the photos to show the details of your injuries.

Photos should be taken not only soon after your car accident, but days later when the bruising becomes worse, during the healing process and after your treatment is complete.

But those aren’t the only times to take photos. Take photos or have someone else take them while you’re in the hospital getting treatment for your injuries and later in doctor offices. In some cases, a photo of you in a hospital or in your doctor’s office with your injuries highlighted on a computer or other device can have a major impact on a jury and equally on an insurance adjuster.

Injuries to Children and Infants From Car Accidents in Palm Springs and Orange County

With infants and small children, it’s often difficult for a parent to know if their child was injured or not from a car accident. Children are often unable to express their pains or symptoms as well as an adult and sometimes they tell their parent what they think a parent wants them to say.

The best advice for parents of a child is to always have your child seen by a doctor or at a hospital as soon after an accident as possible to determine if your child has suffered an injury.

Pregnant Women Who Have Been Injured In An Orange County or Palm Springs Auto Accident

A woman who is pregnant and who has suffered injuries in an auto accident has a number of special concerns. They may suffer a miscarriage, go into labor, suffer pain in their abdomen, feel faint, dizzy, nauseous, and suffer anxiety if they cannot feel their baby move.

A mother’s concern for her unborn child can be enormously stressful. Carrying an unborn child is difficult enough. Now add to that difficulty a mother’s neck or back pain, a fractured leg or knee injury and anxiety for the health of the unborn child and you have a mother who will surely need assistance from a family member if they have one who can help, or a visiting nurse or care giver.

Back and Spinal Cord Injuries from Car Accidents, Motorcycle Collisions, Truck Crashes, Pedestrian Impacts and Bicycle Accidents

Our backs are made up of muscles, tendons, and ligaments which are entwined around vertebrae, disks and one’s spinal cord. There are 24 individual vertebrae from the neck to the lower back.

Between the vertebrae are 23 disks which act as cushions for the vertebrae. The cervical vertebrae in the neck has six disks, the thoracic vertebrae below that has twelve disks and the lower back has five disks.

Nerve endings surround the vertebrae and the spine behind it. In the event any of those nerve endings come in contact with damage to the soft tissue, herniated or bulging disks or other damage to the vertebrae or spinal cord, pain ranging from mild to severe and debilitating can result.

Herniated and Bulging Disks Resulting from Car Crashes in Palm Springs and Orange County

When there is trauma such as a car accident to the back, one or more of the disks can become herniated or bulged. When a disk breaks open and cartilage protrudes outwards, the disk is herniated. When the disk is pushed out of its normal position between the vertebrae, it becomes a bulging disk.

Other Back Injuries from Accidents in Orange County and Palm Springs

Among the other types of injuries that can occur to the back in a car accident are injuries to the ligaments, muscles and tendons surrounding the vertebrae. When they stretch or tear, the nerve endings can also cause excruciating pain.

If an impact causes part of the vertebrae and spine to compress downward, a compression fracture may be the result. Multiple vertebrae can even disintegrate or fracture. If the vertebrae and spine twist far enough in the impact from a car accident, a transverse fracture can result. The most common fracture is a dislocation fracture of a vertebrae.

Back Surgeries After An Accident That Has Totaled Your Car and Causes You Pain and Numbness

A common surgery for the back is a laminectomy in which a small part of a damaged vertebrae is removed along with damaged disk material and cartilage from the nerve area. Spinal fusion surgery is another common surgery. In this type of surgery two or more vertebrae are fused together. One risk of such surgery is that it may place more stress on the vertebrae above or below the fusion thus requiring further surgery.

New surgical procedures are constantly being developed and car accident victims should always research doctors and hospitals for the latest developments and obtain second and even third opinions before proceeding with any surgery of this magnitude.

How Car Insurance Companies View Different Types of Treatment for Your Injuries in Orange County and Palm Springs

Auto Insurance adjusters are trained to find fault with your medical treatment and your bills. To an insurance company evaluating the value of your case, not all treatment is viewed as having the same weight.

First, insurance companies try to argue that diagnostic services such as X-rays, CAT Scans and MRI’s are not treatment. They are “just” diagnostic, and therefore, an insurance company argues, are not symbolic of a car accident victim having any pain and suffering or being entitled to any further damages for such diagnostic bills. Every auto insurance adjuster these days claims that the bills for such diagnostic services are excessive for your community, no matter what area of the state you live in. It can also be problematic if your doctor recommended multiple MRI’s and they all come out negative (showing no injury).

The lack of an ambulance to the hospital indicates to a car insurance company you were in a non-serious car accident and non-serious injuries. The lack of a visit to the Emergency Room the same day as the accident will additionally subtract value from your case when dealing with an insurance company.

Primary doctors versus specialists is another distinction made by insurance companies. A general practice doctor whose treatment consists primarily of an examination and a prescription for medicine is viewed less importantly than say an orthopedic surgeon who examines a patient and refers them for an MRI.

In the past, car insurance companies viewed treatment provided by physical therapists to a car accident victim for their injuries as much more valuable than treatment provided by a chiropractor. Today, that distinction is less prevalent than in the past, but some insurance companies still view chiropractic treatment less favorably.

Treatment by acupuncturists seem as well to carry less weight with insurance companies and massage therapists even less.

Home exercises by an injury accident victim without the supervision of a medical professional in a medical office carry almost no weight at all with an insurance company.

The duration of treatment is important to the valuation of your car accident claim by an insurance company. Treatment for an injury that lasts only a few weeks is indicative of a less significant injury and a smaller case value than an injury that requires months of treatment. While it also may mean in terms of health, you’re better off, the value of your case is smaller if you’ve required less treatment.

Similarly the date of your first treatment is important. An injury victim who doesn’t start receiving medical treatment the day of the car accident or soon after but waits weeks will have a difficult time convincing an insurance company that the car accident caused their injuries and not something else, like hang gliding while on vacation.

Today, there are also pain management specialists who offer different types of injections that can alleviate pain that persists from your injuries after a serious car accident. The injections are designed to target the nerves causing a car accident victim’s pain and are more focused than pain medications.

While more invasive, this type of treatment can be more beneficial to a car accident victim and their injuries and to date at least, insurance companies are accepting such treatment as indicative of a patient’s ongoing pain and suffering. Treatment may be by administering trigger point injections designed to stop muscle spasms or facet injections designed to reduce pain in facet joints.

A common injection provided by pain management specialists is an epidural steroid injection. As with any such medication, injected or otherwise, patients should discuss any possible side effects, risks, or dangers from such treatment with their doctors.

You Have A Right To Be Fairly Compensated For Your Auto Accident Injuries in Orange County and Palm Springs

If you’ve been injured in a car accident in Palm Springs or Orange County that’s not your fault, or any other type of truck, motorcycle, scooter, pedestrian or bicycle accident, including an accident caused by an uninsured motorist, a robotaxi or a Lyft or Uber vehicle, you have the right to obtain a settlement from either the other driver’s insurance company or your own if you have uninsured motorist coverage when the other driver has none or was a hit and run driver.

If you were not the cause of your car accident and you’ve been injured and have been to the hospital or need to see a doctor for your injuries, call Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson.

Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson can refer you to specialists to treat your accident injuries by doctors who will wait to be paid until your car accident case settles. If you have health insurance, Medi-Cal or Medicare, or if you have medical payments coverage on your car insurance, this is the time to use that coverage for your car accident injuries.

An accident victim in California has a limited amount of time to either settle their case or to file a lawsuit in a court of law for their injuries. This is the same whether your accident was a car accident, or a truck, motorcycle, bicycle or pedestrian accident. It’s even the same if you were attacked by a dog and received dog bites or if you’ve lost a loved one in any type of vehicle accident.

Don’t let an auto insurance company skate by without paying you for your medical bills, your pain and suffering, your wage losses, out of pocket expenses and for your future pain and suffering and wage loss. If you don’t start receiving treatment for your injuries soon after your accident and document the pain and suffering you’re going through, the value of your case will be significantly diminished.

Uniquely Talented Representation For Your Car Accident in Orange County and Palm Springs

If you’ve been injured in a car accident, it is essential to obtain the best possible representation by an experienced auto accident attorney. Evidence disappears over time as do the memories of parties and witnesses. Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson knows how to obtain and preserve evidence so in the event of trial, it can be utilized to prove the other driver’s negligence.

Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson is an experienced personal injury attorney with well over 40 years of experience in California and internationally. With law degrees in both California and in Great Britain, Sebastian Gibson is uniquely talented to represent you in your car accident.

An inexperienced attorney on the other hand may provide you with either no guidance or may make decisions which will badly affect the outcome of your case. The simple choice of a bad mediator by your car accident attorney for instance can make the difference between obtaining a superior settlement or having to take your case to trial and running the risk of a costly defense verdict.

If You’ve Been Injured In A Car Accident, Call Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson

Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson has been named a Top Injury Lawyer for the past 14 years in a row by Palm Springs Life Magazine. He’s been rated a “Superb” Lawyer by Avvo (their highest rating) which rates lawyers all across the U.S.

If you’ve been injured in any type of accident, car, motorcycle, truck, bicycle or pedestrian, suffered a dog bite or you’ve lost a loved one in a wrongful death accident, call Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson today at (760) 776-1810.

Palm Springs and Orange County Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson has been named a 2024 Top Lawyer for the 14th year in a row by the prestigious Palm Springs Life Magazine.