San Diego and Orange County Helicopter Accident Lawyer Sebastian Gibson is ready to begin gathering evidence today to represent you as your San Diego Helicopter Accident Attorney in 2010. These tips are provided to offer some guidance as to the first steps you should take after being injured in a San Diego Helicopter Accident. Your actions in the initial days following your San Diego Helicopter Accident are crucial and this advice, if followed, will greatly assist us in your representation.

While some of these tips may be too late for you if your Helicopter Accident in San Diego was some hours or days ago, as a Helicopter Accident Attorney in San Diego, we provide these tips in the hope they may yet be useful for you in connection with your San Diego Helicopter Accident and for any future Helicopter Accidents you may have.  You would be extremely unlucky to have two of these accidents, but in view of the rash of EMS helicopter crashes, it's unfortunately possible. 

First, take a look around and determine if you or anyone else is hurt. If so, taking steps to prevent further injury or loss of blood are the most important thing you can do until help arrives. The worst thing you can do is get angry or start a fight. As your San Diego and Orange County Helicopter Accident Attorney, it is much easier to obtain the compensation you deserve if we don’t also have to deal with claims that your accident turned into a brawl or was the result of road rage.

Second, make sure any other passengers in your San Diego Helicopter Accident are safe from being injured further. If you are in danger and can safely get out of the way, walk to where it is safe. If you aren’t dizzy and can help others without risk to yourselves or risking injury to them, help them

Third, if no one else already has, call 911. Let the police know you are injured immediately. Answer all the questions honestly but if you are dazed or confused, let them know you need medical attention and answer only what you are certain about.

Fourth, obtain any information you can. If there are witnesses, obtain their information as well. If anyone makes any admissions of fault, write them down as well. The police and emergency services personnel will likely separate you once they arrive so try to obtain this information while you can.

Fifth, if you have a camera or a cell phone with a camera built in, take some photos of the scene of the accident and the others involved. If you failed to do so immediately after the accident, take some now of the scene of the accident in San Diego or wherever it occurred. As your San Diego Helicopter Accident Attorneys, we can obtain additional photographs or NTSB photographs, if any, later.

Sixth, if you are hurt, obtain medical treatment. Don’t decline the ambulance or hospital examination to save your insurance company money or to be stoic if you have coverage. Take your valuables out of your vehicle and get checked out at the hospital. If you are not hurt, don’t get treatment you don’t need. However, remember, after an accident, you may feel a rush of adrenaline that causes your symptoms to go unnoticed by you until a few hours later. If you have a health plan that requires you to obtain permission before going anywhere for medical treatment, call them first to find out where you can go for treatment that is covered by them. As a Helicopter Accident Attorney in San Diego and other areas of California, nothing is more important to you and your case than obtaining proper medical treatment promptly.

Seventh, call a good San Diego or Orange County Helicopter Accident Attorney as soon as you have had your initial medical treatment so your San Diego Helicopter Accident Lawyer can gather important evidence and prevent the other party’s insurance company from taking advantage of you by obtaining things such as a recorded statement from you. A good San Diego Helicopter Accident Attorney can save you from making mistakes and can shoulder much of the hassle that results from an accident. Your San Diego Helicopter Accident Lawyer can also advise you in connection with how to obtain medical treatment on a lien, etc. An experienced San Diego Helicopter Accident Attorney can almost always obtain higher settlements, obtain reductions of medical bills and insurance liens that have to be repaid. Most Attorneys will also advance the costs of obtaining accident reports, and medical records that are crucial to a good settlement.

Eighth, do not agree to settle your claim privately with the person at fault for the accident in San Diego or with their insurance company when they want to offer you a paltry amount before your injuries have been checked out or treated. Neither of these scenarios work to your advantage. Insurance companies offering a quick settlement are usually taking advantage of you at a time when you can least afford it.

If you’ve had an Orange County or San Diego Helicopter Accident, auto, bicycle, car, big rig, pedestrian, truck, or motorcycle accident or a dog bite in San Diego, or anywhere in Southern California, we have the resources and knowledge to be your San Diego Helicopter Accident Attorney and your San Diego Helicopter Accident Lawyer and will see that you are properly represented to obtain the compensation you deserve for your accident.

EMS Helicopter Accidents

There is an unexpected catastrophe happening on the way from horrific accident scenes in the U.S. on the way to hospitals in EMS helicopters. The helicopters are crashing killing many of the occupants at an unacceptable rate. If you’ve been injured in an accident in some remote or mountainous area and it is dark, or in bad weather, your chances of surviving the trip to the hospital may be better in an ambulance.

San Diego and Orange County helicopter accident and crash lawyer Sebastian Gibson stands ready to represent victims of helicopter accidents and the families who have lost loved ones in these helicopter crashes.

Deaths as the result of helicopter crashes in the U.S. have been soaring to record levels and the National Transportation Safety Board has been investigating just what is behind this rash of Emergency Medical Service and Police helicopter crashes.

In the past 12 months from when this article was written, 31 people have died in eight crashes. EMS helicopter crashes in the U.S. have become one of the most dangerous areas of aviation and one of the highest accident rates for aviation crashes. During this year, 24 people died on medical airlifts alone.

An NTSB study of EMS helicopter crashes between 1983 and 2005 found that the majority of the crashes occurred - 77 percent as opposed to 31 percent - when weather conditions forced pilots to fly using their instruments rather than by looking outside for visual cues. In darkness, 56 percent of the crashes were fatal as compared to 24 percent when the flight was not in darkness.

That study determined 29 of those 55 accidents could have been avoided. A number of safety issues were identified. Consequently, in 2006, the NTSB issued a special report to address the safety issues of these flights to accident scenes and sought computerized safety equipment, terrain awareness and warning systems (TAWS) (also referred to as terrain avoidance technology) to warn pilots when they were flying too close to land.

It has been reported that while some progress has been made, none of the NTSB recommendations from that report have been fully implemented.

All but two of the past eight fatal EMS accidents have been at night or in bad weather.

By comparison, the fatal crash rate for ambulances is nothing like it is for helicopters.

Now the U.S. House and the Senate are considering legislation to address these safety issues and place higher standards on the industry.

Until this situation is improved, pilots of EMS helicopters as well as the police and medical personnel on the ground in areas such as San Diego and Orange County have to take into consideration the condition of the injured persons at accident scenes, the dangerousness of the location, as well as the weather conditions and darkness in determining if the accident victims can be taken to a hospital by ambulance or if the risks warrant the use of an EMS helicopter, both for the safety of the injury victims and the EMS pilots, flight nurses and paramedics.

Veteran EMS pilots say the use of night-vision goggles could improve their safety. But because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is apparently a shortage of these goggles. Fewer than a third of the 800 EMS helicopters in the U.S. have night-vision technology. The wait time for civilian use of the goggles at the largest U.S. manufacturer is six to eight months.

On October 16, 2008, a critical-care helicopter crashed in Aurora, Illinois, killing two crew members, a nurse and a 1 year-old patient while they were in the air and en route to a Chicago hospital. The helicopter reportedly clipped a guy wire from a radio station tower and crashed.

If you’ve been injured in a helicopter accident or lost a loved one in a helicopter crash, we invite you to call our offices for a free consultation with San Diego and Orange County helicopter accident lawyer, Sebastian Gibson.