You know the story, “Oh – it was just whiplash…” or “The impact did not cause much damage to the car…” or “The speed was less that 10mph…” These are what I call BS stories. If you do not have a broken bone or some other injury that is readily seen you will have a steep uphill battle getting any money out of an insurance company.

Those BS stories are told by the insurance companies at trial to try to convince juries that there was no injury or if there was an injury its minimal. These types of crashes often result in what the insurance companies call “minimal impact soft tissue” or MIST claims. This implies that the injury is minimal or no injury all. That is just not true!

Take whiplash for example. In a whiplash injury the head, about the size and weight of a ten pin bowling ball, is violently thrust back and forth. The ligaments and tendons of the neck are under tremendous force and oftentimes succumb to the forces generated–they stretch and sometimes tear. Just a soft tissue injury they say.

Consider for a moment what happens to the brain inside the skull when your head is thrust violently back and forth. You have what is called coup-countercoup.

This banging of the brain against the inside of the skull causes brain damage. Just another soft tissue injury the insurance adjuster says. I do not know about you but I rather like my brain just the way it is.

People who experience coup-countercoup and have a brain injury often suffer for months, and sometimes years, and sometimes for the rest of their lives with debilitating symptoms. Any brain injury also places you at risk for more severe injury from later head injury. You just do not have a brain injury and recover completely and then have another brain injury and recover again. Each brain injury is cumulative and the deficits in function deteriorate more with each injury.

You need to know that MIST cases are oftentimes severe injuries. If not for your case, or a family member's case, but maybe for the next time you are on a jury.

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