What Is Considered a Catastrophic Injury?

There are a lot of different types of injuries that I believe to be catastrophic or severe. How we define catastrophic could be the impact that it has on the person. An injury that may not appear to be overtly catastrophic may impact somebody on a day-to-day basis. So we’re talking about things a lot of times like a traumatic brain injury, talking about spinal cord injuries, burns, amputations—those are the types of things I think of. But again, I think there’s a lot of different types of injuries that can be classified as either catastrophic or severe. The most important thing is to really understand how it impacted the person that we’re talking to. The question I like to ask clients is, “I want you to tell me, I want you to really think about your life on a day-to-day basis—think about from the time you wake up all the way until the time you go to sleep at night—and tell me how this injury impacts you,” because that’s how somebody, a jury for example, will be able to relate. That’s our job: to get our clients to be able to tell their stories.