Denver Amputation Lawyers
Did You Lose a Limb Due To Someone Else’s Negligence?
Johns Hopkins Medicine reports that 82% of amputations in the U.S. are due to vascular disease, but of the amputations caused by physical trauma, 70% affect the upper limbs. About 2 million people a year undergo amputation, which often comes with scarring and permanent disfigurement. It affects the way they work. It affects their relationships. It affects nearly every aspect of their lives.
And if another person was to blame for the incident, that person should pay for it. Whether they created an environment in which amputation was likely and didn’t warn you, or they barreled into you head-on on the highway, there is no excuse for negligence.
Leventhal Puga Braley P.C. has been pursuing compensation for injury victims for over forty years. Our Denver amputation injury lawyers work with experts in many fields: medical, engineering, accident reconstruction, economics, and more. With our legal counsel, you can face the future with more confidence. Call (303) 759-9945 to set up a no-cost initial consultation.
Traumatic Amputation
They make up the minority of overall amputations in the country, but traumatic amputations are by far more dangerous. The force required to sever a limb can cause other damage to a body, and 75% of arm amputations are related to trauma.
A complete amputation means the limb is wholly separated; a partial amputation means tissue still attaches the limb to the body. In these situations, stopping blood loss is the doctors’ first priority – to save the patient’s life. Then, surgeons will see if they can reattach the severed part.
Here are the ways we’ve seen people lose limbs:
- Car or truck crash, especially a rollover or occupant ejection
- Motorcycle crash, since bikers don’t have the same protection as drivers
- Bicyclist or pedestrian being hit by a motor vehicle
- Skiing collision, either with another skier or due to the ski equipment
- Serious burns, whether caused by a vehicle or house fire, workplace scalding, live wires, etc.
- An explosion on the battlefield or due to a faulty appliance
- Construction site incident, such as being caught between two large moving surfaces or pulled into machinery
Sometimes, if a portion of the body is damaged beyond repair after an accident, emergency medical providers will opt to remove it, and this is still considered a traumatic amputation.
A comminuted fracture may be set, but if the bone was shattered in too many places, the victim may have constant pain for years after “healing” and may decide to amputate. The operation is done under general anesthesia or spinal anesthesia. Once the affected limb is removed, surgeons will close a flap of skin over the wound, and wrap on a pressure bandage. Aftercare involves cleaning and draining the wound and providing pain medication and antibiotics to prevent infection.
Surgical Amputation
Surgical amputation of a limb is done for similar reasons: to remove damaged or infected tissue and bone and leave as much healthy tissue as possible. To keep a disease from spreading, doctors must seal off the blood vessels and nerves. This decision is not to be make lightly. Surgical amputation may be required due to:
- Compartment syndrome
- Gangrene
- Severe frostbite, which often turns to gangrene
- Diabetes
- Peripheral vascular disease (PVD)
- Cancerous tumors
- Osteomyelitis (infection in the bone)
Cutting above or below the knee is common. However, we have also seen surgeons remove a patient’s healthy limb due to a never event known as wrong-site, wrong-patient, or wrong-surgery. Needless to say, this is medical malpractice. Other forms of medical malpractice surrounding amputation include undiagnosed and untreated complications, such as hospital-acquired infections, blood clots turning into pulmonary embolisms, muscle shortening, and painful neuromas. Some of these are grounds for a claim, some are not. Please speak to our Denver personal injury lawyers about your situation.
What Compensation Can an Amputee Recover in Colorado?
If someone else is found to be responsible for your amputation – and proving it is a long and complex process, best undertaken by an experienced legal team – you are entitled to monetary compensation by Colorado law. Actually, by almost every state’s laws. Leventhal Puga Braley P.C. handles these claims across the United States. We may be able to get you compensation for:
Amputations take a few months to heal, but a lifetime to recover from. The physical and emotional adjustment will affect the patient’s mobility, self-care, and self-image – in short, his or her independence. It is often difficult to return to previous employment, and the lost wages and medical bills pile up quickly. Insurance companies, instead of rushing in to help, try to stall and offer low settlements to close the matter.
- Hospital bills
- Future medical care, including wound treatment and pain medication
- Physical therapy
- Counseling
- Rehabilitation and support programs
- Assistive devices, including prosthetics
- In-home or in-vehicle modifications
- Pain and suffering
- Phantom pain or grief over lost limb
- Lost wages or loss of employability
- Vocational counseling
- Education for family members
Leventhal Puga Braley P.C. can help. If you lost a limb through no fault of your own, call us at (303) 759-9945 for a no-cost initial consultation, where we can answer questions and review your medical records. If we accept your case, you pay no upfront fees to pursue litigation. Though we are based in Denver, we accept amputation and other serious injury cases throughout the United States. Our firm has forty years of experience to draw on, and when you are our client, you come first.
Additional Information
Great Trial Lawyers Obtaining Unparalleled Results
303-759-9945 
877-433-3906