How to Pick Up the Pieces Following a Hit-and-Run Crash
Car accidents can change your life, and seldom for the better. You might walk away without a scratch if your seatbelt saved you or the vehicle that hit you didn’t make solid contact. However, you may also sustain a serious injury or experience psychological trauma for months after the wreck.
PIP insurance can help you following an accident if you live in a state that requires it. Some do, but many do not. If you live in a state that requires it, then your insurance will cover the accident damage, even if the other driver clearly caused the wreck.
If someone drives away after an accident, though, that situation often looks quite different, both to you and the police who will show up on the scene to investigate. Leaving an accident scene constitutes a felony in all 50 states.
That doesn’t mean some drivers won’t still do it, though. Maybe a driver consumed alcohol or took illegal drugs and then hit your car. If so, they might drive away so that the police don’t catch them and put them in jail.
You might also have a situation where someone doesn’t have a license, but they drive anyway. Maybe they don’t care about the law, or perhaps they feel like they need their car to get to work, so they risk driving with a suspended license or without ever getting a valid one.
No matter why someone drives away after hitting your car, you might have a hard time picking up the pieces and getting back to your life. Let’s talk about how you can do that.
The Physical Injuries
If a driver hits your car and then leaves the scene, then hopefully, you got a good look at them. You can tell the police about the other car’s make and model when they arrive. It shouldn’t take them long to get there, unless you’re out on some deserted stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere.
If you’ve sustained physical injuries, then try not to move. You can call for an ambulance if you have your smartphone with you, or maybe you have someone in the car who can do it instead. You may also have a feature that enables your car to call 911 for you if it senses you experienced a crash.
A qualified doctor can assess your injuries. Maybe you only have some bruises or cuts, and they will heel within a few weeks.
Sometimes, though, you will have more serious injuries. If so, you must talk to a doctor about the best path forward.
You May Need Surgery or Physical Therapy
Medical science has advanced beyond anything that a physician could have dreamed possible a century ago. Now, robots can help with surgery and you can get joints replaced that function just as well as a natural human body part.
Keep that in mind if you have to have surgery after the accident. It’s no fun having an operation, but you will hopefully have a positive outcome.
Think about some of the serious injuries from which people have regained full or at least partial use of their bodies. Tiger Woods was in a car wreck that by all rights should have killed him, but he survived and ever regained most of the use of his limbs.
You might also need physical therapy after the operation, or perhaps after the crash even if you didn’t require surgery. That’s not always easy, but you should try to go into it with the best mindset possible.
Try to maintain a glass-half-full mentality. You survived, and you have the strength inside you to get past this bump in the road.
The Mental Damage
The mental damage can be great after a hit-and-run accident as well. Maybe you keep asking yourself why it happened. If you lost a limb to amputation after the accident or you can’t do some of the things you once could, that’s a tough mental test for anyone, even someone who usually has a positive outlook.
You’ll need your family and friends during this time. Hopefully, they’re up to the task. If they love you, then they will pick up the slack around the house if you can’t help out as much. They might have to cook and clean more, drive the kids to school, and do more of the things that you once did.
In time, perhaps you can recover at least somewhat, even from a permanent injury. You will learn a new way to live. It won’t feel quite the same, but if you’re determined and resilient, you can press on and still enjoy your life and your many blessings.
You Might Need to Seek Therapy
You may also feel like you need to seek therapy after a hit-and-run accident, especially if you sustained a permanent injury like what we’ve described. Perhaps you will enjoy talking to someone outside of your family and friend circle.
You can tell your therapist the negative thoughts you’re having. You can scream into a pillow or lay out all of the frustrations you’re experiencing. The therapist should commiserate with you. They may give you some sage advice that you can follow.
Perhaps the police will eventually catch the hit-and-run driver, and you might sue them. If they caused a permanent injury, you should have plenty of motivation.
If you can get a monetary settlement from the other driver or a jury’s verdict in your favor, then you should get some money, and that might make you feel at least somewhat better. If you lost a limb, the ability to walk, or some other capability that meant a lot to you, then money alone won’t make that up, but it’s better than nothing.
You might live with the consequences of what happened for the rest of your life. You should do the best you can. We must all play the cards that fate deals us, and that certainly applies here.
