Every time the brain is shaken – whether from a blow or from a transmitted force like whiplash – brain injury occurs.  Every brain injury is an amputation.  Brains don’t grow back.  As Hippocrates said about 400 B.C.: “No head injury is so trivial that it can be ignored, and none so serious that the life must be despaired of”.

Brain injury is common in personal injury litigation.  Not because brain injury is common, but because brain injuries are devastating: someone may choose not to sue over a broken tooth.  A little easy dentistry and you’re as good as new.  A broken brain though, changes WHO you are.  Impaired judgment.  Uncontrollable anger.  Poor concentration.  Poor memory.  Altered sex drive – sometimes hyped-up and sometimes wiped out.  Depression.  Social isolation.  Loss of insight.  Loss of empathy.  Loss of initiative.  You look the same, but have become a monstrous approximation of who you used to be.

It’s horrible.

Brain injuries cost insurance companies a lot of money.  So they fight.  They deny.  They obstruct.  They lie.  They accuse the victims of faking the injury.

Most brain injuries can’t be seen by standard imaging (like MRI).  So the defence is free to say: “If I can’t see it, it isn’t there”.  Really?  Ever seen the planet Mercury?  How about Moscow?  Peek-a-boo is funny for babies because their brains have not developed to the point of “object permanence” – the understanding that things still exist, even when we can’t see them.  Defence so-called “experts” use the logic of toddlers to argue that if they can’t see it, there’s no injury.  I recently showed a defence neurologist (claimed to be an expert on brain injuries), a photograph of a human brain cut in half and preserved in formaldehyde.  I asked him what was wrong with this patient.  He said the patient was fine.  Really?  How about the fact his brain has been cut in half? Peek-a-boo!

Newer imaging (like diffuse tensor imaging) does show brain injuries which used to be invisible.  So the defence and their hired “experts” claim the science is “not proved”.  Anything but admit that this devastating injury occurred.  Because they don’t want to pay.

A recent Swedish study published in JAMA Psychiatry  followed 218,000 people who had been diagnosed with brain injuries between 1969 and 2009.  Among the results was the finding that anyone with a brain injury – even a “mild” brain injury is THREE TIMES more likely to die prematurely.  I expect the insurance companies and their hireling “experts” will try to explain that away as coincidence.  Or maybe say that Swedish brains are “different”.  Or say the dead people are just faking.  I know they won’t admit the truth.  Because the truth would cost them money.

A lawyer who understands the science about brain injuries can defeat the lies of the defence.  Peek-a-boo.  I SEE YOU.