Nothing can prepare you for the debilitating fear and anxiety you can feel after an automobile-related accident. Within an instant, an unexpected collision can land you in the hospital with severe injuries, insurmountable medical expenses, and time away from work and family. These obstacles can feel impossible to overcome. Josh is a client of ours here at Guest & Brady, and his recent experience with injury left him with more than he could handle alone.
When we first met Josh, he was a 20-year-old recent transplant to Greenville from Ohio. He moved to the Upstate with a determined attitude, in search of a job. A bicycle was the only means of transportation Josh could afford, and so every day, he cycled many miles to and from work in hopes of saving for a brighter future.
One evening, on his way home from a long shift at work, Josh is hit by an automobile and thrown from his bicycle to the asphalt. Knocked completely unconscious, Josh wakes up in the hospital with no clue of where he is or how he got there. Josh sustained multiple severe abdominal injuries as a result of the bicycle accident and had to be put on a ventilator during his week-long hospital stay. His doctors forecasted a multi-month recovery period that would keep Josh out of work, a report that was completely devastating to Josh’s financial reality.
To make matters worse, Josh was incorrectly charged with contributing to the accident, and because he was uninsured, he was faced with personal responsibility for his medical bills and time away from work, all while trying to recover from his injuries. Josh was unsure where to go from there. How could he pay off tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt? Where would his next paycheck come from if he was unable to return to work? Would he ever fully recover from his injuries? So many details about Josh’s life were now uncertain and unstable.
One day, while Josh was in the hospital, we received a call from Josh’s friends who were concerned about his wellbeing and also were questioning the charges he’d received. That evening, we visited Josh in the hospital to learn more about his bicycle accident and to see if there was anything we could do to help. We learned that Josh had been incorrectly charged with contributing to the accident and offered to represent him in a claim to the insurance company of the at-fault driver.
Our work with Josh began with an investigation of the automobile accident and a review of the facts and evidence collected at the scene of the crash. We collaborated with forensic experts who were able to prove that Josh had in fact not contributed to the accident in any way and that the driver of the car who collided with Josh’s bicycle had significantly contributed. After this discovery and correction, the insurance company of the at-fault driver offered a settlement that would cover some of the incurred costs, but Josh would still be left with thousands of dollars in debt.
As a firm, Guest & Brady was able to further help Josh by negotiating his medical bills with the hospital and the medical insurance company to an amount that would be covered by the settlement monies awarded by the at-fault driver’s insurance company. Josh’s expenses from the bicycle accident were completely satisfied, and he was able to receive compensation for lost wages as a result from time away from work. Guest & Brady took care of all legal actions, negotiations, and logistics so that Josh could focus on recovering from his injuries. Today, Josh is fully recovered, debt-free, and back at work. We are so thankful to have been involved on such a successful case and to help ease a stressful and painful situation for Josh.
