Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
Tennis star Venus Williams was involved in a crash that resulted in the death of a 78 year old man weeks after the crash of brain injury.
Reports of the crash and “wrongful death” law suit against Ms. Williams are at
- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/sports/tennis/venus-williams-crash-lawsuit-wimbledon.html
- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/sports/tennis/venus-williams-crash-fatality.html
- http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/venus-williams-sued-family-man-dead-car-crash-n778701
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/legalentertainment/2017/06/30/venus-williams-facing-wrongful-death-lawsuit-for-car-accident/
NHTSA research found that brain injuries in crashes are often missed especially in older patients. I remember one case where an older man was given a half body cat scan for his lower extremity injuries but died weeks later of brain injuries that had not been scanned until weeks later (when it was too late). I asked the surgeon why only a half body scan was done in the first place. He said cost. I asked how much more would a full body scan cost? He said not much difference in cost but that there was a difference in schedule payments that could be justified.
See NHTSA research on crashes injuries, treatments and outcomes at https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/CIREN1.pdf
Hopefully deeper investigation of the emergency medical care of this crash victim can result in improvements in care for crash victims.
