These days parents entrust the safety and well-being of their kids to friends and family with the understanding that these people will whatever necessary precautions are required to ensure that the children will the well cared for during trips to and from school and other extracurricular events. Unfortunately, automobile, trucking and motorcycle accidents do happen when least expected.
It can be a parent’s worst nightmare when the phone rings and they hear the news that their child has been taken to the hospital with serious or even life-threatening injuries. And no one is prepared when a police officer walks up to their door to notify a family that their son or daughter has been killed in a traffic wreck.
Here in Baltimore, and in other cities such as Annapolis, Gaithersburg and Washington, D.C., minor children are hurt in roadway collisions more than many people might imagine. While these car, bike and commercial truck collisions are usually caused by another negligent driver, occasionally the person responsible for the accident is the same individual charged with keeping that child safe — friend or relative is found to be at fault for the traffic accident.
As Maryland automobile accident attorneys and personal injury lawyers, it is our job to represent the victims of such accidents and to help these individuals, or their families, recover the costs related to such traffic collisions. Sadly, with the cost of medical care rising every day, hospital stays can total tens of thousands of dollars just to start. If the injuries are serious enough — such as damage to internal organ, spinal cord injury or closed-head trauma — the costs associated with treatment can sometimes skyrocket.
If a car crash has hurt a family’s breadwinner, the additional hit due to lost wages can be a severe strain on the household budget, which makes day-to-day living difficult, exclusive of the father or mother’s medical bills. When a child is harmed due to the negligent actions of another person, the family may be able to file a personal injury suit on the minor’s behalf.
And, as difficult as it can be to imagine such as scenario, a child who dies tragically because of the careless actions of another individual is also entitled to be compensated for his or her pain and suffering, as are the child’s parents or legal guardians.
A while back, news reports mentioned a car crash that sent two teenagers to the hospital in Harford County. According to one article, the accident happened on a stretch of Bynum Ridge Rd. when the automobile in which they were passengers riding in stuck a tree after running off the roadway in Bel Air.
Based on police reports, 19-year-old Steven Strike was driving his Mercury Capri during a Saturday evening when he made a steering maneuver to avoid hitting a pickup truck driven by a 21-year-old man that had stopped in roadway ahead of his vehicle. According to police, Strike’s vehicle skidded off the road and hit a nearby tree a little after 7pm that evening.
Two of the three passengers in the Capri were hurt as a result of the wreck. Fourteen-year-old Bailey Steele from Baltimore and Kayla Annmarie Teague, also 14, of Bel Air required medical attention and were taken by medevac helicopter to the Johns Hopkins Pediatric Hospital for treatment.
According to reports, Strike and a third passenger, 13-year-old Shayla Graves received minor injuries that did not require hospitalization. The occupants of the pickup truck were not hurt. According to police, neither of the drivers was impaired by alcohol or drugs.
Two Teens Flown to Hopkins After Car Crashes Into Tree, Patch.com, May 5, 2011