Denver Vision Loss Lawyers
Helping Those with Vision Loss Due to Negligence
Vision loss, while not fatal, is still an incredibly impactful and difficult injury to fully recover from, both physically and emotionally. It leaves you unable to perform tasks that once took up your day-to-day life and forces you to find an entirely new way of living. The Denver personal injury lawyers at Leventhal Puga Braley P.C. have seen firsthand how eye injuries can leave our clients in shambles. If you or someone you know is currently suffering from vision loss because of someone else’s bad choices, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at (303) 759-9945 or toll-free at (877) 433-3906. We fight for our clients, and do everything we can to win them the compensation they need to live a comfortable life.
What Are Common Causes of Vision Loss and Eye Injury?
The eye is incredibly delicate, made up of soft tissues and thin nerves. This leaves it susceptible to injury, and even inflammation. While eyes, like the rest of the body, naturally break down with age, there are plenty of people who lose their eyesight due to injury or someone else’s negligence. A few common causes of eye loss are:
Medical Malpractice: A misdiagnosis, botched surgery, or lack of treatment can leave you suffering vision loss or completely blind. Medical professionals have a responsibility to provide safe and fair treatment. When they fail in this duty and cause harm to their patients, then they should be held liable for their actions.
Auto Collisions: Car crashes can lead to all sorts of catastrophic injuries. Eye damage, or complete eye loss, is among them. Glass and metal shrapnel are often sent flying after a collision, and it’s easy for that shrapnel to end up striking your eye.
Sports Accident: Blunt force trauma, meaning an injury caused by slamming into an object, can cause brain damage and skull fractures that can result in partial or total vision loss. Bats, balls, and other players hitting you can, and often does, end in disaster.
Product Liability: You could suffer vision loss simply by using certain home chemicals such as bleach or even poorly produced contact lens solution. If the chemicals you are using don’t have proper warnings or are made improperly and you’ve been injured, then you may have a case of product liability.
Vision Loss and Medical Malpractice
As we have already mentioned, medical malpractice is a common form of negligence that leads to vision loss. There are many ways that malpractice that could lead to an injury to your eye, some directly caused by your doctor’s actions, others caused by your doctor’s inaction.
Surgical Errors: Eye surgery can result in permanent eye injury. LASIK, ICL, and PRK, are eye surgeries where errors can cause vision loss. Or when an eye or optic nerve suffers trauma, sometimes the only way to fix the issue is to perform a corrective surgery. Any number of things could go wrong. Even the slightest unintentional movements could cause catastrophic and permanent damage.
Misdiagnosis: There are many diseases with eye damage or vision loss as a potential side effect. These diseases need to be diagnosed as soon as possible to ensure the proper treatment is implemented quickly to avoid permanent damage. Stevens Johnsons Syndrome is a disease that can cause horrific injuries to the eye. If these illnesses are not caught in time, then your life could be severely impacted.
Poor Sanitation: Hospitals are hotbeds for bacteria and viruses – that is why they must be constantly sanitized. This goes double for operating rooms and equipment. If these steps are not taken, then an eye could become infected, leading to permanent damage.
Failure to Refer: Ophthalmology is the medical specialty for eyes. So, any injury to the eye should be treated by an ophthalmologist. If your doctor does not refer you to an ophthalmologist, then you will likely not receive the treatment you need.
Medical professionals have a responsibility to make sure all of their patients receive the standard of care. Anything less than that could have disastrous results. If your vision was harmed by medical malpractice, you have the right to compensation. Even minor damage can have a severe impact on your life.
The Different Kinds of Vision Loss
When it comes to the loss of eyesight, there is no one universal experience. Not every injury or illness will lead to full blindness, and full blindness isn’t the only kind of vision loss that can have a profound impact on your day-to-day life. Common vision problems include:
- Blind spots
- Loss of peripheral vision
- Lowered night vision
- Blurred vision
- Generalized haze
- Light sensitivity
- Double vision
- Blindness
Even minor vision loss, such as blurred vision, can lead to serious ramifications. For example, your ability to drive hinges on your ability to see. If the state denies you a driver’s license based on your type of vision loss, then you lose your ability to travel independently.
What Are Consequences of Eye Damage?
Beyond the pain that comes with eye damage or the emotional trauma of losing your ability to see, vision loss can have an incredible impact on your life. It can leave you unable to perform your normal duties at work, thus losing you your job and any future wages from said job. This may even impact your ability to work in your chosen field. There’s also the fact that any severe injury requires help from a medical professional to properly heal, so you will likely be left with medical debt and hospital bills. Your day to day life will not be the same again, as a loss of vision leaves you unable to drive or perform other daily tasks.
Ultimately, vision loss is no easy thing to recover from. Those who suffer eye injuries will never be able to go back to their life before. If you or someone you know is currently suffering from vision loss at the hands of someone else’s carelessness, then your life has likely been left in shambles. Do not give up hope, however. While your vision may not come back, you still have options when it comes to receiving compensation.
What Compensation May Be Available After Vision Loss?
If your eye troubles were caused by someone else’s negligence, then you have the ability to receive compensation through a personal injury claim, where you demand that the liable party and insurer cover the cost of what you have suffered, more commonly known as damages.
In Colorado, there are two groups of damages that you can file a claim for. Economic damages refer to monetary losses that you suffered due to the cause of your injury. By claiming economic damages, you will not have to cover the costs of your injury. This means you can claim for things like medical bills, lost wages, and property damage, if your vision loss was due to a car crash, for example.
Non-economic damages, the second group, are non-monetary losses. Vision loss impacts your day-to-day life, not just your job or your ability to pay bills, so you are likely suffering from a lowered quality of life, pain and suffering, and emotional trauma. However, Colorado has a cap on non-economic damages. These caps can differ from injury to injury, but are important to keep in mind.
If you are already suffering from vision loss and trying to adjust your life accordingly, a claim may seem overwhelming at best, pointless at worst. But it is not. You do not have to go through the process alone.
Our Denver Eye Injury Lawyers Are Here to Help
If you or a loved one is dealing with vision loss due to someone else’s negligence, filing a claim is probably the last thing on your mind. You have medical bills to handle, are worrying about finding a new job, and are doing your best to emotionally deal with the fact that your vision will never be the same. We at Leventhal Puga Braley P.C. may not be able to change what happened to you, but we can help win you the compensation you need and the justice you deserve. Contact our Denver eye injury attorneys today at (303) 759-9945 or toll-free at (877) 433-3906 for a no charge initial consultation.
Additional Information
- Causes and Effects of Infant Cortical Blindness or Impaired Vison
- When Misdiagnosis And Vision Loss Mix
- National Eye Institute (NEI)
- Eye Injuries - MedlinePlus
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303-759-9945 
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