Stabbing Victim Injury Attorney in Atlanta

If you are stabbed in Georgia, you should follow these steps immediately:

Get Treatment from a Medical Professional

The most important thing to do if you’re stabbed is to obtain treatment from a medical professional.  You may need to contact 911 if the stab wound is severe and have an ambulance sent, or quickly make your way to the closest emergency room. Obviously, seeking treatment after a stab wound is crucial to your health and life, but seeking and receiving medical treatment can also be integral to establishing your legal claim.

Once treatment is concluded, be sure to attend all follow up appointments and follow a prescribed treatment plan. You also need to keep all documentation of healthcare, including doctors’ reports, medical bills, prescriptions, and the like.

Report the Stabbing to the Police

You need to report the stabbing to the police the moment you are physically able to do so, preferably in the minutes or hours following its occurrence. If you do not file a report with the police, two things may happen: First, the person who stabbed you may get away with the crime, continuing to pose a danger to others. Second, you may hinder your ability to pursue a civil claim. (That being said, it is possible to prevail in a civil injury claim even if the perpetrator is never convicted or even identified. This is because civil stabbing injury cases are often predicated on the duties of the property owner to secure the premises, rather than any specific involvement in the event in question.)

Record Details of the Stabbing Incident

It can be psychologically challenging to do so, but following a stabbing, write down as much information about the incident that you can remember. This includes:

• The date, time, and location of the stabbing.
• Parties involved.
• Any witnesses to the stabbing.
• What you were doing before the stabbing took place.
• How the stabbing occurred.
• Whether there was any security in place (i.e. security cameras, motion sensor lighting, etc.).
• Any other details you can recall.

In pursuing a claim for damages, these details can be essential. As you recover, you should also record details about the recovery process, such as the extent of impairment of your physical capabilities, your ability to work, any emotional trauma you are enduring, how it is impacting your personal and professional relationships, etc.

Contact an Experienced Georgia Personal Injury Lawyer

Finally, you should contact an experienced Georgia personal injury lawyer to determine if you have a viable claim. The property owner or manager of the area where it happened may be liable for failing to provide adequate security.

Being the victim of an act of violence is terrifying. A stab wound can cause serious physical and psychological harm, including:

• Internal injuries.
• Excessive bleeding.
• Bone fractures.
• Paralysis.
• Brain injury.
• Post-traumatic stress disorder.
• Anxiety.
• Depression.

This can prevent a person from being able to return to work. They may fear leaving their own home. They may be unable to care for themselves.  Additionally, stab wounds demand medical attention, which can be very expensive, particularly if the victim does not have healthcare or has a high deductible.

Stabbing injuries to the colon can be particularly devastating, if not fatal. Research has shown that stab wounds and low-velocity gunshot wounds represent 85 to 95 percent of colon injuries among civilians. The colon is injured in 30 percent of all abdominal gunshot wounds and 5 percent of all stab wounds. Such injuries can have high rates of morbidity (death), but can also be associated with the need for an emergency colostomy. It’s possible this procedure can be reversed later, but dealing with a colostomy (where you excrete waste into a bag from a hole in your stomach) for any period of time is not only physically arduous, it’s emotionally excruciating. This kind of physical trauma and mental distress can be claimed as damages in a civil case.

Criminal charges should always be brought against the perpetrator of an attack.

However, a civil lawsuit against the perpetrator may also be necessary. In Georgia, victims will only be able to recover compensation by taking civil action. It is important to remember that a civil case and a criminal case will be separate legal actions.

Unfortunately, in many criminal attack cases, even taking civil action against the perpetrator will still not be enough to cover the full extent of the victim’s damages. This is true even if the civil action is successful because many perpetrators are ‘judgment proof’. Essentially, this means that the perpetrator lacks the assets needed to cover the victim’s damages. Fortunately, if you are a victim facing a judgment-proof defendant, your lawyer may be able to secure compensation through other means.

Victims of stabbing injuries may have the right to seek full and fair compensation in civil litigation not just from their attacker, but from these third-party landowners/occupiers. Note that this is different from the restitution that a criminal court may order a defendant to pay. Restitution (if it’s even ordered) will not carefully consider the full extent of your damages in an effort to “make whole” the victim. That’s not the purpose of criminal courts; it’s to penalize the offender. It is the civil court that will take a more careful accounting of your losses and, if you are so entitled, issue a more

Recognize that a key element in the civil premises liability case is going to be foreseeability of the crime. That is something that requires meticulous investigation and skill in litigation to establish. Anyone who is physically assaulted in a Georgia stabbing should consult with an experienced injury attorney promptly.

Victims may be able to recover through the State of Georgia’s Crime Victims Compensation Program. This program establishes a fund that helps victims of crime get through the difficult aftermath of the incident.

Qualifying victims are provided with some financial compensation for damages related to their attack. While this is a very important program that does a lot to help victims, there are strict caps on available compensation.

For example, a maximum of $15,000 is available for medical and dental expenses. Further, $25,000 is the maximum claim available through this program. Unfortunately, in many assault and battery cases, victims sustain damage that is far beyond the cap. This is why it is crucial to speak to a lawyer who can help you find any party, whether the perpetrator, a property owner or another third party, who might bear some responsibility for your damages.

As a trial attorney with decades of experience and a litany of successes in Georgia stab wound civil cases, Stephen Apolinsky and our attorneys at Apolinsky & Associates, LLC will work to fight for full and fair compensation for your losses.

Under GA Code § 9-3-33, the statute of limitations dictates that parties injured by stabbing crimes in Georgia have just two years to bring personal injury claims forward. After those two years, a court will dismiss your stabbing injury claim. It is important for victims of stabbing injuries to retain legal counsel experienced in dealing with personal injury cases. Oftentimes, insurance companies will engage in stalling techniques to run out the clock and avoid paying you anything, so it is always best to have a knowledgeable attorney on your case to combat these strategies.

Due to the number of complex factors that go into the statute of limitations in any individual case, victims should contact a personal injury lawyer experienced in stabbing injury cases to advocate for your just compensation.