In an odd phenomenon, recent studies have shown that veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are at a much higher risk for car wrecks than the general population.  The studies have found:

• Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have a 75 percent higher rate of fatal motor vehicle accidents than do civilians (with a large portion of these being from motorcycle wrecks).
• Veterans are much more likely to be in a wreck in the six months after deployment than the six months before deployment.
• The more combat tours the veterans had completed the higher risk that they become involved in an accident.

These numbers are startling, but there are some explanations.

Some theorize that troops come back with driving habits that help them while deployed (rushing through intersections, etc.) that help survive overseas but contribute to higher wrecks back at home.

Others theorize that post traumatic stress disorder, which is becoming all too common in returning troops, causes aggressive driving.

Personally, I wonder if there’s another explanation.  Suicide amongst veterans is the leading cause of non-battle deaths.  Social scientists have long understood that suicides dramatically increase after a highly publicized suicide.  This is known as the Werther effect.  However, not only do obvious suicides increase, but fatal car accidents and even plane accidents increase significantly after a publicized suicide.  The theory is that for many people, they do not want to have appeared to have killed themselves.  Instead, they may purposefully cause a wreck or accident so it seems that they died accidentally.

Regardless, these men and women have served us, and our military owes it to them to try and help protect them from these fatal accidents, whatever the cause.

I was prompted to start my standard Summer Safety Tips series by hearing today’s tragic news of Alex Rovello.

Alex, a tennis player at the University of Oregon, tragically died this weekend after diving near the water fall of a popular Oregon swimming hole.

Sadly, Alex’s story is not unique.  Each year, thousands of people are injured from jumping off of cliffs or rock formations into popular swimming areas around the country.  People just don’t realize the forces involved in high jumping.

According to the US National Park Service, if you jump from 20 feet above the water, you’ll hit the water at 25 miles per hour.  The impact is severe enough to compress your spine, break bones or give you a concussion — and that’s if you enter the water properly.  If you slip or mistime your jump, it is almost like hitting concrete. If you jump from 10 feet, you can reach speeds of 17 miles per hour — fast enough to damage a car in a car wreck, and fast enough to hurt you.

But in most of our Texas lakes, rivers and creeks, there are additional risks.  With our drought and fluctuating water levels, it’s very difficult to know what hidden dangers lurk below the surface.  It’s difficult to know what rocks, stumps, or other dangerous items lurk just beneath the surface.

In many ways, I’m a bit hypocritical on this issue.  When I was a kid, my dad lived on a lake, and we were always happy to jump off small rock formations.  But doing this job, I’ve seen too many seriously injured, including a good friend of mine, trying to have a little fun.  None of that fun is worth a life-time of problems.

Safety in the workplace is a serious issue. Companies that violate the law face penalties and/or lawsuits.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is deadly serious about safety in the workplace. And despite what companies may think, they do inspect and keep track of whether or not there is compliance after an inspection. In this case, not only was there no compliance, the issues kept getting worse.

This is a Texas case involving Worldwide Oilfield Division, Inc. in Houston. It was slapped with a number of penalties for eight violations (new ones), four repeat violations and one safety violation after an October 2012 inspection. OSHA inspectors discovered workers were routinely exposed to unguarded machinery, electrical hazards and other issues at the Worldwide Oilfield Division location on Cunningham Road.

The inspection cited the facility for allowing workers to run dangerous, improperly protected equipment, putting them at high risk for amputations and other serious injuries. On re-inspection, the issues had not been fixed, resulting in a higher fine of $71,200.

Conditions noted at the facility included failing to provide the proper safety guards for a variety of machines that ran the gamut from vertical and horizontal turret lathes to band saws, and failing to ensure all panels, electrical cords and boxes were securely anchored to avoid the possibility of electrocution.

In penalizing the company, OSHA noted that it is the employer’s responsibility to provide a safe workplace for all workers. Providing a safe workplace includes ensuring the equipment they work with is not dangerous and has the proper guard equipment in place to prevent serious accidents.

Aside from the fact this company is in direct violation of OSHA rules, they are potentially exposing themselves to a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit. In the eyes of the law, if an individual is badly injured or killed while on the job, and the cause of the accident was negligence on the part of the employer, the workers have a right to worker’s compensation benefits or to sue for compensation to cover items such as medical expenses, lost wages, and medications. In this instance, the employer is negligent in not providing a secure workplace and in not addressing safety issues, even when told to do so.

If you have been in a situation like this, discuss your case with an Austin injury attorney. If you want to know what is involved in an injury case or wrongful death lawsuit, an Austin injury attorney can provide you with the answers, allowing you to make informed choices about your situation.

Perlmutter & Schuelke, LLP is one of the premier trial firms in Austin Texas. Contact a personal injury lawyer by calling 512-476-4944 or learn more at http://www.civtrial.com/.

If you have suffered a brain injury, you might be referred to a neuropsychologist, who will often recommend neuropsychological testing.

A neuropsychologist is a psychiatrist with a specialty in the science of brain-behavior relationships.  In other words, they deal with how brain function affects your behavior.   The neuropsychologist uses a number of methods, including neuropsychological testing, to evaluate your injury.

Neuropsychological exams usually consist of a series of questions about your condition.  Some tests may be brief, but some may be much more detailed, taking up to a full day.

The test results are used for a number of different purposes.   Depending on the need, the purposes may include (1) diagnosis of an injury; (2) patient care and planning; (3) treatment; (4) evaluation of treatment; (5) research; and (6) forensic neuropsychology — for use in litigation and lawsuits.

For personal injury purposes, we’re interested in all of those categories.  We’re interested in 1-4 to make sure you get better and get the care you need, and we also seek a forensic evaluation for your case.  In the litigation context, the neuropsychologist can help confirm you have a brain injury, document the extent of your injury, evaluate your future course of treatment, and provide opinions about your recovery, both in terms of your daily activities and your work life.

As the Texas economy booms, so does the construction industry.  But recently, that’s coming at a high cost to workers.  Recently, the University of Texas and the Worker’s Defense Project released a study showing the costs — primarily in on-the-job injuries and wage theft — to workers.

An NPR story describing the report notes in part:

“Like almost everything in the Texas, the construction industry in the Lone Star State is big. One in every 13 workers here is employed in the state’s $54 billion-per-year construction industry.”

“…Years of illegal immigration have pushed wages down, and accidents and wage fraud are common. Of the nearly 1 million workers laboring in construction here, approximately half are undocumented.”

“…working Texas construction is a good way to die while not making a good living. More construction workers die in Texas than in any other state, the WDP-UT study finds. Within 2010, construction workers in the lightly regulated Lone Star State died at twice the rate as those in California.”

“According to the study, 1 in every 5 Texas construction workers will require hospitalization because of injuries on the job. Texas is the only state in the nation without mandatory workers’ compensation, meaning hospitals and taxpayers usually end up shouldering the cost when uncove red construction workers are hurt.”

You can read the full report here 

If you or a loved one has been injured in an on-the-job or construction injury, give us a call at (512)476-4944.  We’d be happy to talk to you to see if we can help.

In an effort to reduce texting while driving deaths, a mother and father are releasing photos of the text message their son was typing at the time he lost control of his car and died.

Watch this tragic story from the Today Show.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Brain injuries are devastating in children.

Today, traumatic brain injuries remain the leading cause of both death in children.

For those children lucky enough to survive, an early brain injury can have life-long consequences.  Brain injuries often affect a child’s ability to learn even years after the injury.   Young victims are particularly vulnerable because most brain development occurs between the ages of 1 and 5.  Even as children get older, studies still suggest that the younger they are at the time of injury, the more serious problems they will face.

And even when a child has a satisfactory or normal IQ levels, emotional problems caused by the head injury set them back.  One study found that 19 of 22 children with  brain injuries showed long-term emotional issues.

These problems have a real economic value.  One study found that only 27 percent of kids who sustained brain injuries were working full-time by the time they reached age 21.

Unfortunately, auto accidents are the leading cause of brain injury-related deaths in children.  Proper use of seat belts and car seats can really help minimize these risks.

Falls still account for most brain injuries in children, including falling down stairs, falling off of playground equipment, and falling out windows.  Parents can help reduce the risk for these types of injuries by child-proofing the house and making sure that playgrounds are protected by twelve inches of soft surface material (such as mulch, gravel,  etc.)

Bicycle accidents also account for thousands of brain injuries per year.  Parents can reduce the risk of bicycle-related brain injuries by teaching their children bicycle safety and making sure that children are properly using bicycle helmets.

A common argument that we hear from insurance companies is that our client’s brain injury couldn’t have been caused by the accident because the client’s head didn’t hit anything.  That is a fallacy.    It is true that most head injuries are caused by a trauma to the head.  For example, in a car wreck, the victim’s head may hit the window, the steering wheel or the dash board.  However, there are a number of other common situations that lead to brain injuries where there aren’t any direct blows to the head.  Some of those are listed below.

1.  Forces applied to the brain.   You don’t have to hit your head to apply forces to the brain.  When your head moves rapidly, your brain moves inside your skull and impacts the brain.  These forces, slamming your brain around in your skull, are often hard enough to cause brain injuries.  For example, one study found that in car wrecks of 35 miles per hour, 27% of drivers and 21% of passengers who were wearing seat belts were at high risk of head injury even when their head didn’t contact anything on the interior of the car.

This risk is often made worse because multiple impacts occur.  Studies have repeatedly shown that repeated brain injuries have a cumulative effect on people, and in high impact accidents, there are often multiple injuries.  For example, in a simple rear-end case, upon impact, the head is immediately thrown forward, causing the brain to hit the front of the skull.  And then the head whips back, causing a second impact with the back of the skull.  With more complications, such as impacts with other cars or quick stops, there are additional opportunities for more impacts and more injuries, all occurring without the head ever hitting anything on the interior of the car.

Even hearing the above description, some may discount the non-impact cause of head injuries.  But remind them of shaken-baby syndrome.  Countless children are harmed or even killed from head injuries suffered by shaking — and they all occur without any impact.

2. Blast Injuries.  One legacy of the Iraq war is that we are learning more and more that people around explosions can suffer severe brain injuries without any type of impact on the head.  These same type of injuries are often found in construction-site accidents or in various types of manufacturing plant accidents.

3.  Lack of Oxygen.  Brain injuries are also often caused by anoxia, or lack of oxygen to the brain.  These types of injuries often occur in near-drowning cases, but they also arise in other situations.

4.  Loss of Blood.  An injured person who loses a lot of blood may also develop a brain injury even though the head never impacted anything during the actual accident.

5.  Electrical Injuries.   Many doctors miss this, but any type of electrical injury can potentially cause a brain injury in a person.

Just because you or a loved one doesn’t have an impact on your head, don’t dismiss the possibility of a brain injury.  Recognizing the brain injury and getting prompt treatment can make a difference in your outcome.

If you think you or a loved one has sustained a head injury, it’s critical to know potential symptoms of brain injuries.

Knowing the symptoms can help you understand when a brain injury is possible so that you know to speak to your doctor about it.  A 2003 Centers For Disease Control report to Congress noted that in many instances, persons with mild traumatic brain injuries fail to timely seek medical care because they don’t recognize their symptoms. Even worse, the report notes that once care is sought, many medical providers still fail to diagnose the head injury or recognize the severity of the brain injury.  Knowing the symptoms of brain injury and looking for them in yourself or your spouse can help make sure a diagnoses is made as soon as possible.

Knowing the symptoms can also help you understand what you or your loved one is going through.  Often, a spouse or loved one will become frustrated with the way injured person’s conduct.  In those situations, it’s important to understand the symptoms of brain injuries and to know that the injured isn’t choosing to act that way.  Instead, the injured has a serious condition with serious consequences and needs to get medical care.

There are literally thousands of potential symptoms of head injuries.  If you come to our office with a potential head injury, you will be given a form that asks you about the following symptoms, which we commonly see in brain injury cases:

• Headaches
• Feelings of dizziness
• Nausea and/or vomiting
• Noise sensitivity (easily upset by loud noise)
• Sleep disturbance
• Fatigue/tiring more easily
• Irritability
• Feeling depressed or tearful
• Feeling frustrated or impatient
• Forgetfulness/poor memory
• Poor concentration
• Processing issues/taking longer to think
• Blurred vision
• Light sensitivity
• Double vision
• Restlessness
• Reading problems
• Writing problems (writing letters out of order, etc.)
• Word recall/inability to remember words, names or numbers

If you have a head injury, you’re not likely to have all of these symptoms.  Most people only have 2-3, and many only have one.  What is important is to know the symptoms and look out for them following a wreck or other event.

Doctors had long thought that in cases of mild injuries these symptoms would slowly disappear as the brain heals.  But new research is beginning to reveal that even mild brain injuries can have permanent damage and be related to long-lasting symptoms.  For example, in the summer of 2012, a new study of brain injured veterans (and sadly, our veterans are now suffering too many brain injuries) found that symptoms of post-concussion syndrome can last for years.   This and other studies are confirming what we see in our practice — even the most “minor” brain injuries can last a life-time.

Over the years, we’ve been fortunate to help a number of clients who have suffered brain injuries in various types of accidents.  After speaking to some recent clients, one of their biggest frustrations is that it’s difficult to find easy to understand information about brain injuries, brain injury treatment, and brain injury prognosis.  As a result, we’ve spent a good amount of time trying to help them find accurate, easy-to-understand information.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be writing a series of blog posts that try to give some basic information.

Keep in mind, this isn’t medical advice, and patients with brain injuries, more than anyone else, should get the help they need as quick as they can.  But I maintain that people who know more about their condition and their case, make better decisions and get better results.

I also think the information is particularly important in head injury cases.  Sometimes doctors are slow to diagnose head injuries because the doctors don’t know you well enough to compare your condition after the wreck to your condition before the wreck.  Therefore, it’s important for you, your friends and family members to know the symptoms of head injuries and potential causes of head injuries to help with the diagnosis process.