The hours and days following a bicycle crash can be filled with fear, uncertainty and stress as victims and their families wait for medical staff to assess their condition and provide emergency care. Tragically, despite everyone’s best efforts, many bicyclists ultimately pass away from their injuries.
While legal action and money can be the last things on a family’s mind after a sudden loss, survivors should know that there may well be damages available for a wrongful death.
What do the damages cover?
When someone dies from another person’s negligence or recklessness, this can be a wrongful death. Of course, money and lawsuits cannot truly repair a loss, but these claims are a way to make those affected by the loss financially whole.
The damages that can be available include compensation for money already lost, including lost wages and medical expenses. They can also account for future costs, like loss of future income.
Financial losses can begin accumulating the moment a person is struck in these accidents. And a legal claim can also reflect these damages. Everything from hospital bills to emergency care and the pain and suffering a person experienced before passing away can be accounted for.
For instance, recently, New York Jets coach Greg Knapp was struck in a bicycle accident. He was in the hospital for five days before succumbing to his injuries.
In other words, there will likely be economic and non-economic damages when an accident is not immediately fatal. And these damages can be just as crucial to recognize as those that survivors experience after a victim passes away.
How damages can help survivors
Again, money cannot undo an accident or truly compensate loved ones for a loss. However, it can alleviate financial strain associated with significant medical bills, especially when the victim was the primary earner in a household or financially supported others.
Damages also serve as a means of recognizing the non-financial ways an accident affects others.
The toll that a severe bicycle accident takes on victims and loved ones begins the moment a crash occurs, and it can continue indefinitely after a loss. In wrongful death cases, survivors deserve to have the full extent of their damages reflected in a legal claim.