Kenneth Goldblatt | October 20, 2018 | Personal Injury
When someone mentions a traumatic brain injury lawyer near Albany a certain picture comes to mind. Or, at least certain words and phrases: Ambulance chaser. Exploitative. Litigious Idiot. Actually, there’s some truth to that last one, while we’re in no way idiots, the Law Firm of Goldblatt & Associates is litigious. And, for good reason! While many people make fun of a traumatic brain injury lawyer near Albany, let us give you an idea of what we actually do by introducing you to someone who knows what’s at stake all too well;
MINOT, ND — At 8:20 p.m. on Sept. 21, 2010, Iraq veteran Brock Savelkoul decided it was time to die. He lurched from his black Tacoma pickup truck, gripping a 9-mm pistol. In front of him, a half dozen law enforcement officers crouched behind patrol cars with their weapons drawn. They had surrounded him on a muddy red road after an hour-long chase that reached speeds of 105 miles per hour. Savelkoul stared at the ring of men and women before ducking into the cab of his truck. He cranked up the radio. A country song about whiskey and cigarettes wafted out across an endless sprawl of North Dakota farmland. Sleet was falling, chilling the air. Savelkoul, 29, walked slowly toward the officers. He gestured wildly with his gun. “Go ahead, shoot me! … Please, shoot me,” he yelled, his face illuminated in a chiaroscuro of blazing spotlights and the deepening darkness. “Do it. Pull it. Do I have to point my gun at you to … do it?” Savelkoul had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. As it happened, Savelkoul’s state of mind was of interest not only to the cops surrounding him, but to some of the nation’s top medical researchers.
More than 2 million troops have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Tens of thousands have returned with a bedeviling mix of psychological and cognitive problems. For decades, doctors have recognized that soldiers can suffer lasting wounds from the sheer terror of combat, a condition referred to today as post-traumatic stress disorder. They also have come to know that blows to the head from roadside bombs — the signature weapon in Iraq and Afghanistan — can result in mild traumatic injuries to the brain, or concussions, that can leave soldiers unable to remember, to follow orders, to think normally. For them, a traumatic brain injury lawyer near Albany is rarely in their thoughts…but it should be.
On that night in September, Savelkoul’s troubles transformed from academic data points and the stuff of jest to something terrifyingly real.
Though medics are supposed to check soldiers exposed to a blast for concussion, Savelkoul doesn’t remember talking about traumatic brain injury and, according to a doctor who reviewed his medical chart, he was never diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. This is what makes the work of a traumatic brain injury lawyer near Albany so critical; a client who has suffered due to negligence and can’t speak up for themselves.
“When you work a lot with traumatic brain injuries, you actually kind of recognize even the look of a person who has been acutely concussed, which is kind of a dazed expression, a little bit unfocused, a little bit slow to respond.” It’s these expertise, the ability to know exactly what we’re dealing with, and how to handle it, that makes a traumatic brain injury lawyer near Albany so valuable to the Law Firm of Goldblatt & Associates.
War has always fueled innovation, helpful and horrible. Better body armor and battlefield medicine have helped soldiers survive injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan that would have proven fatal in previous conflicts. But the advances that have saved soldiers’ bodies cannot protect their minds from insurgents’ primary weapon, the roadside bomb.
Blast waves penetrate through Humvee doors, bulletproof vests and Kevlar helmets, rattling soldiers’ brains and altering cells and circuitry. Most recover quickly, but some suffer lasting damage to their cognitive abilities.
In a memo first disclosed by USA Today, a medical team warned senior Pentagon health officials that the military’s medical system “lacks a system-wide approach for proper identification, management, and surveillance for individuals who sustain a TBI, in particular mild TBI/concussion.”
However, it wasn’t until the Walter Reed Hospital scandal of 2007 that the military dramatically increased attention to the so-called “invisible” wounds of war. The Washington Post revealed that officials at the hospital, the crown jewel of the military medical system, housed soldiers with brain damage in moldy hospital rooms, often ignoring their needs. This is negligence of the worst kind and it must be answered for! The traumatic brain injury lawyer near Albany working at the Law Firm of Goldblatt & Associates is the kind of traumatic brain injury lawyer near Albany to deliver the compensation and justice the men and women deserve!
Mild traumatic injury does not mean it’s a mild problem. Mild doesn’t necessarily mean mild consequences. One concussion may cause you to have lifelong problems. “There is anger, fear and shame. A lot of people wonder why they are in this treatment and others are not. They get stuck like that, they need an advocate, a traumatic brain injury lawyer near Albany from the Law Firm of Goldblatt & Associates.
We did not design our health care system for traumatic brain injury. There are a tremendous number of people who have concussions … meet the diagnostic criteria for traumatic brain injury, that never seek professional attention. This needs to change, and with the help of a dedicated traumatic brain injury lawyer near Albany, it can.
You aren’t missing an arm or a leg or a finger. But the brain is just as important. If it’s injured, it’s injured. TBI effects different people in different ways. It’s critical that this is discussed. It’s a serious injury, even though you can’t see it. You still need treatment, and an advocate to ensure you get the care, compassion, and compensation you deserve. For more information about a traumatic brain injury lawyer near Albany, contact The Law Firm of Goldblatt & Associates at: 914-788-5000.