Everyone has heard this old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. This old saying apparently had its beginning in the December 1921 as part of an advertising campaign. While it is almost a century old, the saying is still applicable today….maybe even more so than ever. We live in the era of the Internet and of TV and smartphones. We are now, and have been for some time, a visual species. We have shorter attention spans. We like to see demonstrations. Don’t tell us, show us.
The same goes for personal injury cases. A picture of a scene or of the damage to a car or of someone’s injuries can convey so much more than a description of those items. What would create more of an impression, an estimate to repair the damage to a car or actual pictures of the damage to the car? In the vast majority of situations, the picture will be far more impressive. Similarly, what do you think would have more impact, hearing someone needed 10 stitches or seeing a picture of a long laceration with 10 stitches sown into someone’s skin? The pictures obviously would have much more impact. If you have any questions about your accident, CLICK HERE to contact us today.
That is why whenever you are injured in any type of accident, you must think like a lawyer and TAKE PICTURES of everything possible. Take pictures of the scene of the accident, the car, the substance you slipped on in the store, your bruising, cuts, scrapes, stitches, etc. This is so important. Once the scene of the accident or injury has been cleaned up or returned to normal, that evidence is lost forever.
An example. I have an Orlando personal injury client who was injured in a car accident when he was rear ended by another vehicle. The repair estimate says his car only sustained $500.00 worth of damage. Doesn’t sound like much, right? (By the way, people can sustain serious personal injuries with a low dollar amount of property damage, so don’t be fooled by the numbers). The insurance company for the person who caused the crash will say, “How could he be injured when his car only sustained $500.00 worth of damage?” Well my client was sharp the day of the accident. She took pictures of both carsat the crash scene. The damage to the car causing the crash was substantial and it looked a lot worse than the $500 worth of damage to my client’s car sounded. It was a significant help in my client’s case.
Scene pictures can be even more important in slip and trip and fall cases where the scene can and will be cleaned and repaired as soon as possible after the incident occurs. Say you slip and fall on a puddle of something in the supermarket and sustain a personal injury. You know the store will clean up the puddle as soon as possible. They will remove all evidence that the puddle ever existed. Unless you run into a completely honest store manager who does not fear for his job, everyone may deny even the existence of the puddle. But if you took pictures of it, you would have proof the puddle was there.
Say you trip over a broken parking bumper. You know those white pieces of concrete that you pull your car up to in most parking lots. Most of those parking bumpers are secured to the ground by 2 rebar rods, one at each end of the parking bumper. Many times these parking bumpers chip, crack or break apart for a number of reasons. If you trip over one of these broken parking bumpers because the rebar was sticking up out of the bumper or because you tripped over a broken piece of the bumper, taking a picture of the broken bumper may be your only chance to show the bumper in its broken state. In most situations, the bumper will be replaced shortly after the personal injury occurred and it will look like there was never a problem to begin with in the first place.
No one wants to walk around thinking about suing someone else. Most of my clients are not sue happy people when they are injured in a personal injury case here in Orlando, or anywhere for that matter. But as sure as the sun comes up in the morning, most, if not all, wish they would have “thought of” taking a picture of the scene where they sustained their personal injury. You must protect your own interests in personal injury cases. Your attorney will not be able to help because he or she will not have been retained until after the scene has been cleared. The insurance company will not help you because their main goal is to minimize and even avoid having to pay you anything for your personal injuries.
So do yourself a favor, take pictures of the scene of any accident you are in whether it be a car accident, a slip and fall, an amusement park accident, or anything else. Most if not all mobile phones today have some type of camera as part of the phone. Use it. Some phone cameras are better than others. The cameras in the iPhones and Droid are very good. Others are not very good and some are downright bad. But something is better than nothing, so if you do not have a better quality camera in your phone, and you do not have access to any type of regular camera, use your phone. Take a bunch of pictures, as many as possible. If you end up making a full and complete recovery from your personal injury or injuries, you may never need them. But if you do need them, you, and assuredly your attorney, will be very happy that you did indeed take pictures.
If you have been injured or sustained a personal injury as a result of someone else’s fault or negligence, call or contact our Orlando personal injury attorneys for a risk fee, no obligation evaluation of your case. You can reach our Orlando personal injury attorneys at (407) 423-1313 or by filling out our contact form. We will never charge or collect any fees or costs if we do not obtain a recovery for your personal injury claim. All of our Orlando and state wide personal injury cases are handled on a contingency fee basis, which means no fees or costs if no recovery. We look forward to serving your needs in the near future. Thank you for visiting our site.
