Brain Injuries

Injuries to the brain are some of the most severe injuries to happen to a person after a terrible accident including car, truck, motorcycle, and work accidents and can lead to lifelong injuries or even a risk of death.

The Brain Injury Attorneys at Miller Weisbrod represent clients nationwide who have suffered severe brain injuries due to the negligence of others. From serious car accidents to workplace accidents, we put our experience and resources to work to achieve maximum compensation on behalf of our clients.

The consequences from a brain injury are unpredictable, and can change everything about us in a matter of seconds. The brain is made up of many parts, each with a specific and important function.

It controls our ability to balance, walk, talk, and eat. Our brain coordinates and regulates our breathing, blood circulation, and heart rate. It is responsible for our ability to speak, to process and remember information, make decisions, and feel emotions. Every brain is unique, ever-changing, and extremely sensitive to its environment.

BRAIN FUNCTIONS

The brain is a complex organ that controls thought, memory, emotion, touch, motor skills, vision, breathing, temperature, hunger and every process that regulates our body. Together, the brain and spinal cord that extends from it make up the central nervous system, or CNS.

Injuries to these sections (or lobes) can have different effects based upon what part of functions they control.

THE BRAIN IS DIVIDED INTO SECTIONS OR LOBES

Lobe Functions

FRONTAL LOBE
An injury to the frontal lobes may affect an individual’s ability to control emotions, impulses, and behavior or may cause difficulty recalling events or speaking.

• Attention
• Concentration
• Self-Monitoring
• Organization
• Expressive Language (Speaking)
• Motor Planning & Initiation
• Awareness of Abilities
• Awareness of Limitations
• Personality
• Mental Flexibility
• Inhibition of Behavior
• Emotions
• Problem Solving
• Planning
• Judgment

TEMPORAL LOBE
An injury to the temporal lobes may lead individuals to demonstrate difficulty with communication or memory.

• Memory
• Understanding Language (Receptive Language)
• Sequencing
• Hearing
• Organization

PARIETAL LOBE
Individuals who have injured their parietal lobes may have trouble with their five primary senses.

• Sense of Touch
• Spatial Perception (Depth Perception)
• Identification of Sizes, Shapes, Colors
• Visual Perception

OCCIPITAL LOBE
An injury to one’s occipital lobes may lead to trouble seeing or perceiving the size and shape of objects.

• Vision

CEREBELLUM
The brain stem controls the body’s involuntary functions that are essential for survival, such as breathing and heart rate.

• Breathing
• Arousal
• Consciousness
• Heart Rate
• Sleep & Wake Cycles

BRAIN INJURY TYPES

Brain injuries may be classified as traumatic or non-traumatic to describe the cause of the injury. They may also be classified as mild, moderate, or severe to indicate the initial severity of the injury. Other terms, such as diffuse or penetrating, may be used to describe the type injury.

As experienced Personal Injury Attorneys, Miller Weisbrod understands the devastating, and often life-long impact traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) can have on individuals and their families. We take a proactive approach to ensure our clients' immediate and future needs are covered by any verdict or settlement.

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is defined as an alteration in brain function, or other evidence of brain pathology, caused by an external force. Traumatic impact injuries can be defined as closed (or non-penetrating) or open (penetrating).

Often referred to as an acquired brain injury, a non-traumatic brain injury causes damage to the brain by internal factors, such as a lack of oxygen, exposure to toxins, pressure from a tumor, etc. Read on for an overview of some of the common causes of brain injury.

BRAIN INJURY CAUSES

Traumatic Causes	Traumatic Causes
Falls	Stroke (Hemorrhage, Blood Clot)
Assaults	Infectious Disease
Motor Vehicle Accidents	Meningitis
Sports/Recreation Injuries	Encephalitis
Abusive Head Trauma (Shaken Baby Syndrome)	Seizure
Gunshot Wounds	Electric Shock
Workplace Injuries	Tumors
Child Abuse	Metabolic Disorders
Domestic Violence	Neurotoxic Poisoning (Carbon Monoxide, Lead Exposure)
Military Actions (Blast Injury)	Lack of Oxygen (Drowning, Choking)
	Hypoxic/Anoxic Injury – including during birth
	Drug Overdose

BRAIN INJURY SYMPTOMS

Signs of brain trauma can vary. One may experience physical symptoms or functional and emotional changes if a traumatic or non-traumatic brain injury has occurred.

After an impact or injury to the head, an individual can experience a variety of symptoms.

Common symptoms of a brain injury include:

• Loss of consciousness, or altered consciousness (“state of confusion”)
• Dilated eyes (the black center of the eye is large and does not get smaller in light) or unequal size of pupils
• Vision changes (blurred vision or seeing double, not able to tolerate bright light, loss of eye movement, blindness)
• Dizziness
• Balance problems
• Vomiting
• Lethargy
• Headache
• Confusion
• Weakness
• Poor coordination
• Rnging in the ears (tinnitus) or changes in ability to hear
• Difficulty with thinking skills (difficulty “thinking straight”, memory problems, poor judgment, poor attention span, a slowed thought processing speed)
• Inappropriate emotional responses (irritability, easily frustrated, inappropriate crying or laughing)
• Difficulty speaking (slurred speech, difficulty swallowing)
• Spinal fluid (thin, clear liquid) coming out of the ears or nose
• Respiratory failure (difficulty breathing)
• Coma (not alert and unable to respond to others) or semi-comatose state
• Paralysis or difficulty moving body parts
• Slow pulse
• Slow breathing rate, with an increase in blood pressure
• Body numbness or tingling
• Loss of bowel control or bladder control

*If you are experiencing any of these signs of brain trauma, contact your doctor immediately.

BRAIN INJURY SEVERITY

The severity of damage to the brain after an injury is the primary factor in predicting the injury’s impact on the individual. Brain injury is typically categorized as mild, moderate, or severe.

A severe brain injury may cause the individual to experience an unconscious state, where one appears to be in a deep sleep and cannot be aroused or respond purposefully. Assessments will typically reveal that the individual has no sleep and wake cycles. This loss of consciousness (LOC) is referred to as a coma. Depending on varying factors and the severity of injury, the individual may remain in a coma, emerge from a coma, or experience an increased level of consciousness.

People can, however, experience different states of consciousness after brain injury. Understanding these disorders of consciousness can be important when discussing treatment and possible rehabilitation options.

Vegetative State

An individual is unaware, but begins to have sleep and wake cycles; normal digestion, breathing, and heart rates; and may open his or her eyes. The individual may occasionally respond to stimuli.

Persistent Vegetative State

Doctors consider a person to be in a persistent vegetative state one year after traumatic brain injury or three to six months after a hypoxic or anoxic brain injury.

Minimally Conscious State

An individual shows slight but definite self-awareness or awareness of their environment. They may inconsistently speak short phrases or words, respond to simple commands, may make “yes or no” gestures or verbalizations (sometimes incorrectly), follow people with their eyes, grasp or hold objects, and show appropriate emotional responses, such as smiling or crying.

One person may only demonstrate a few of these behaviors, while others exhibit all of them. A minimally responsive state may be a transition level to a higher level of consciousness. An individual is considered out of a minimally conscious state if he or she can communicate consistently (at least “yes” and “no”) or can use common objects, such as a glass or brush.

Locked-in Syndrome

An individual can only move his or her eyes, not any other part of their body, and is conscious and able to think.

Diagnosing brain injury and determining injury severity are two different things. In cases where the injury is more severe, it is usually clear from the individual’s symptoms that some type of brain injury has occurred. In situations where the brain injury is mild or moderate, further assessment is often needed to diagnose the brain injury.

CONTACT MILLER WEISBROD

If you or a loved one has suffered a brain injury after any type of accident, do not hesitate to contact the experienced Dallas injury attorneys at Miller Weisbrod, Attorneys At Law.

Our injury attorneys have the proven record, experience, and resources to help you achieve the compensation you deserve. Contact our offices in Dallas, today at (214) 987-0005 for your initial free consultation. You may also complete the form on this page to contact our support team.

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Oilfield Well Blowouts and Coil Tubing Injuries

Working on an oil well is a hazardous job. Whether it’s the result of exposure to hazardous chemicals, falls, wellsite fires, explosions or contact with equipment, oil well injuries and fatalities continue to occur. Workers caught in the midst of a well blowout may sustain catastrophic injuries or even be killed.

A blowout occurs when a sudden spike in well pressure shoots the well’s contents from ground-level. Drilling wells sustain pressure from the earth’s crust and also use internal pressure to keep fluids circulating. However, disruptions can reverse the flow of well contents and drive them back to the earth’s surface with extreme force.

The sudden release of pressure at the surface can shoot equipment parts, snap heavy cables, and destabilize the derrick. Bystanders can sustain blunt force trauma, lacerations, amputation, and other concussive injuries. Blowouts also release flammable hydrocarbons that can ignite from sparks or friction, fueling explosions and rig fires that cause burn injuries. They can even tap toxic gases such as methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide.

Many oil and gas companies continue to put profit over safety, often resulting in poor supervision, faulty equipment, a lack of safety training and worker fatigue. When accidents occur, they are almost always the result of negligence or intentional short cuts taken by oil and gas companies.

Oil field accidents can lead to any number of debilitating injuries, including amputations, bone fractures, severe burns, blindness, neck and spine injuries, hearing loss, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), permanent disfigurement and traumatic brain injury (TBI).

To prevent a well blowout in drilling, workers should be trained properly and know how to act in the event of an emergency. Those on duty should be aware of how their blowout prevention equipment behaves in extreme conditions and BOPs should be kept in good condition to continue functioning accurately.

Catastrophic Well Blowouts

What is a Blowout?
Blowouts are a release of built-up pressure from oil drilling efforts. When oil collects underground, it forms an oil field. When people drilling for oil attempt to tap into this concentration of oil, the pressure can build up and cause a blowout. Oil well blowouts cause death and catastrophic injuries to workers near the scene of a blowout.

Why do oil wells explode?
Oil well blowouts can occur when the rig applies too much pressure during the drilling, causing the pool of underground oil to erupt. When the drill encounters a pressurized zone underground and the gravity of the drilling mud fails to counteract the pressure, it causes a sudden rush of pressure up the system.

What causes a blowout during drilling?
An uncontrolled flow of formation fluids from the wellbore or into lower pressured subsurface zones (underground blowout). Uncontrolled flows cannot be contained using previously installed barriers and require specialized services intervention.

Types of Blowouts
"Well blowouts" at the surface can cause the oil or gas to be ejected. It could also bring up mud, stones, and sand. These could be caused by sparks from rocks rubbing together or from another type of heat source.

Preventing Blowouts
A Blowout Prevention System (BOP) is used as an extra layer of protection when drilling in high-pressure areas. The BOP consists of several valves installed at the top of the well that allows workers to control pressure or close a well off completely. BOPs are critical to the safety of drilling operations, and they are required to be inspected and maintained frequently.

A blowout preventer (BOP) is a specialized valve or similar mechanical device, used to seal, control and monitor oil and gas wells to prevent blowouts, the uncontrolled release of crude oil or natural gas from a well. They are usually installed in stacks of other valves.

The first sign that a blowout may be eminent is an event known as a “kick”. The kick occurs when the pressure balance is off. If this kick is not controlled, the result could be a blowout. There are certain signs that workers can lookout for when it comes to kicks. The rate at which drilling takes place may suddenly change or the rate of surface fluid may change. Workers also need to be on the lookout for change in the pressure of the pump or a reduced weight in the drill pipe.

What is the difference between a blowout and a kick?
A kick is defined as flow of formation fluids or gas into the wellbore.
A blowout is the uncontrolled release of the fluid or gas, gained through the kick. A blowout can take place at the surface or into another formation (underground blowout).

Blowout preventers were developed to cope with extreme erratic pressures and uncontrolled flow (formation kick) emanating from a well reservoir during drilling. Kicks can lead to a potentially catastrophic event known as a blowout. In addition to controlling the downhole (occurring in the drilled hole) pressure and the flow of oil and gas, blowout preventers are intended to prevent tubing (e.g. drill pipe and well casing), tools and drilling fluid from being blown out of the wellbore (also known as bore hole, the hole leading to the reservoir) when a blowout threatens.

Blowout preventers are critical to the safety of crew, rig (the equipment system used to drill a wellbore) and environment, and to the monitoring and maintenance of well integrity; thus blowout preventers are intended to provide fail-safety to the systems that include them.

Oilfield Coil Tubing

Drilling sites feature incredibly large and dangerous pieces of equipment. They’re required for pulling pipe, drilling, mixing mud, and many other jobs that occur on the worksite. These types of equipment are large and heavy. When they’re faulty, the results can be fatal. Heavy machinery on work sites is required to be safe for workers to use, meaning that it must be well maintained. These workers are also required to be provided with adequate training for operations and safety. When an employee isn’t trained correctly, or when the equipment isn’t up-to-code, that’s when accidents happen.

What does coil tubing do in the oilfield?
Coiled tubing is a cost, and time-effective solution for well intervention operations. Instead of removing the tubing from the well, coiled tubing is inserted into the tubing against the pressure of the well and during production. The coiled tubing is a continuous length of steel or composite tubing that is flexible enough to be wound on a large reel for transportation. The coiled tubing unit is composed of a reel with the coiled tubing, an injector, control console, power supply and well-control stack. The coiled tubing is injected into the existing production string, unwound from the reel and inserted into the well.

Coiled tubing is chosen over conventional straight tubing because conventional tubing has to be screwed together. Coiled Tubing fulfills three key requirements for downhole operations on live wells by providing a dynamic seal between the formation pressure and the surface, a continuous conduit for fluid conveyance and a method for running this conduit in and out of a pressurized well.

The most common applications for coiled tubing are cleanout and perforating the wellbore, as well as retrieving and replacing damaged equipment. A jetting tool can be used to remove scale from a producing well. The tool consists of a rotating head with opposing tangentially offset nozzles and a drift ring.

Jetting action from the nozzles removes scale from tubular walls while the drift ring allows the tool to advance only after the internal tubular diameter is clean. Nonabrasive fluids are pumped through the nozzle for removal; abrasive beads are used to remove hard scales. When tubulars are completely plugged, abrasive jetting is used in conjunction with a powered milling head.

Additionally, some advances in coiled tubing allow for real-time downhole measurements that can be used in logging operations and wellbore treatments. Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) processes, such as hydraulic and acid fracturing, can also be performed using coiled tubing. Furthermore, sand control and cementing operations can be performed via coiled tubing.

Oilfield Coil Tubing Blowout

OSHA Case Study:

Cudd Pressure Control, Inc.
August 3, 2001: An employee was preparing a spool on a coil tubing unit for change out and replacement with another spool containing different diameter pipe or tubing. A coil tubing unit is a mobile unit that carries 15,000 to 20,000 feet of pipe coiled around a spool for deployment into existing oil or gas wells. The employee was standing on top of the spool, about 12 feet above ground level.

As he cut the tubing to free it from the injector, the approximately 10-foot in diameter spool he was standing on began to turn slowly. The spool's hydraulic system was engaged, the brake was not set, and the spool was not secured or chained. In addition, the employee had tied his safety lanyard off to the rim of the spool. Tied at the waist and unable to unhook his lanyard, he was subsequently pulled through a 10-inch gap between the spool and its frame.

The lanyard broke away and the spool then made several revolutions before another operator could climb up into the control room to stop the spool. The incident resulted in a fatal injury to the employee, who was asphyxiated.

Contact Miller Weisbrod

We understand that many oilfield injuries involve permanent damage that may impair your ability to ever work the same way again. We will make sure to include lost wages, future lost earnings, pain and suffering and all medical claims in our settlement demands. Miller Weisbrod's experienced Oilfield Injury Attorneys are prepared to take your case to court as well.

If you have suffered an oilfield injury or a loved one died in an oilfield accident, please contact our offices today at 214.987.0005 or toll free at 888.987.0005 for a free consultation. You may also contact us through the form on this page for answers to your important questions or to schedule an appointment.

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Miller Weisbrod Reaches Milestone of 300 Million-Dollar-Plus Settlements!

Clay Miller and Les Weisbord, partners in Miller Weisbrod, are happy to announce that they have reached the milestone of more than 300 cases with settlements or verdicts in excess of $1,000,000 for their clients. These represent individual lawsuit settlements rather than cases involved in mass tort settlements. A complete list of these settlements can be found here.

These cases range from medical malpractice cases to construction accidents to commercial vehicle wrecks as well as products liability incidents and aviation disasters. Miller Weisbrod has, and continues to, handle catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases throughout the State of Texas and across the United States. The partners and attorneys at Miller Weisbrod have successfully tried or settled cases in over 30 states.

Included in the 300 million-dollar plus verdicts and settlements are 73 birth injury medical negligence cases that have been won in Texas and other states. Miller Weisbrod remains committed to aggressively litigating and trying cases arising from labor and delivery malpractice and newborn negligence cases in all counties in Texas and most states across the nation.

In extremely rare instances, there are settlements where we agreed not to divulge the specific terms of the settlement because of the high-profile nature of the case. One such case in which we cannot divulge such terms of the settlement due confidentiality is our case against Southwest Airlines and Boeing Airlines and other component part manufacturers arising from the death of a young woman pulled through window of a 737 following the fracture of a fan blade. What we can say is the claims in the case were settled and we believe due to the intense press coverage of the incident, our case and the resulting NTSB investigation there have been major improvements in airplane inspection protocols and engine design testing that hopefully will prevent future aviation incidents and disasters.

At Miller Weisbrod, we continue to represent victims across the spectrum of injury law; whether it involves a catastrophic injury, wrongful death at work or on the roadways or in a medical setting arising from our unique specialty of birth injury cases. We stand committed to aggressively representing victims or families of those harmed or killed as a result of the negligence of others.

At Miller Weisbrod, we recognize that we would not be able to represent the clients on this list without the confidence placed in our firm by our referring and joint-venturing attorneys. Miller Weisbrod welcomes the opportunity to discuss all referral and joint venture arrangements.

When it comes to finding out the truth and holding liable parties to account, we bring all of our experience and wealth of resources to bear in each and every case. To speak with one of our Texas personal injury attorneys about your case, we invite you to contact us at 214.987.0005 for a free consultation. If you are calling anywhere outside the DFW Metroplex, please call us toll free at 888.987.0005.

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