There's no bigger relief than visiting your doctor, reciting your symptoms, being told that what you're feeling is normal and there's nothing wrong with you.
But is everything really OK?
Washington residents: You deserve a second medical opinion
A Kennewick man is hurt in a crash with an alleged drunk trucker
A motorist suffered serious injuries when a tractor-trailer operator ran a red light at a Kennewick intersection, crashing into the motorist's vehicle on the evening of Dec. 22. The violent crash occurred just before 5:49 p.m. that fateful day at the intersection of Highway 395 and Hildebrand Boulevard.
Witnesses told Washington State Patrol crash scene investigators that they saw the driver of a Volvo tractor-trailer speeding down the roadway as he drove northbound along Highway 395 in Kennewick. Although the traffic signal where the highway intersects with Hildebrand Boulevard was red, he failed to stop for it. After running the light, the truck crashed into a Dodge Neon that had been traveling westbound at the time.
When is a hospital infection considered negligence?
If you need to spend time in a hospital in the state of Washington, you will do so in the belief that the stay will be beneficial to your health. Whether you were in the hospital for surgery or to treat an illness, it is possible that your immune system will be compromised during your stay. In addition, you will be exposed to different illnesses and infections that are present in the hospital.
Exposure to other patients is something that is essentially unavoidable in hospitals. However, hospitals have the duty to minimize this exposure and the associated risk through hygiene management and good safety practices. If you believe that the way hygiene was managed in your hospital was sub-par and you suffered as a result, you may want to consider holding the hospital legally responsible.
Untreated depression in nursing homes
Many people make the choice to relocate their loved one to a nursing home, believing that such a move will be in the elderly person's best interests. Indeed, when managed adequately, nursing homes have the ability to increase an elderly person's quality of life dramatically, while helping them to remain as independent as possible.
However, the issue of understaffing is currently affecting nursing homes in Washington and throughout the country. Understaffing often arises from the desire to maximize profit. However, it can lead to the suffering of many nursing home residents.
Why the trucking log is so important to investigators
The trucking log is an important tool for not just truck drivers, but also for investigators and attorneys. This electronic log records the driving time, the sleep time and the out-of-service hours of the driver. There is a paper log that the driver can complete as a backup to the electronic log. It is to be filled out honestly, which does not always happen. The truck log helps investigators and attorneys understand the hours of service for a driver if he or she is involved in a truck accident.
Truck drivers are required by law to complete a log for every trip. They must truthfully record the hours in which they operate, the hours in which they take a break, their sleep hours and their out-of-service hours.
These precautions could lessen your injuries in a car crash
There is only so much a driver can do to avoid getting into a car accident. Being defensive, attentive and following the rules of the road will certainly reduce one's chances of being in a collision, but with so many irresponsible drivers on the road, there's always a chance of getting into a crash. Therefore, in addition to driving safely, Benton-area motorists may also want to do the following to lessen the severity of their injuries in the event of an unavoidable accident:
Adjust your headrestYour headrest is one of the best pieces of equipment to prevent a serious neck injury. Adjust the headrest so that the top of it is level with the tip of your head. Having a headrest that's adjusted too low can be particularly dangerous.
When will the government require underride guards on semitrucks?
The U.S. government needs to require underride guards on semitrucks -- not simply on the back of the trailers, but also on the sides of trailers. These underride guards prevent vehicles from sliding beneath the trucks when they collide into them. Numerous deaths and catastrophic accidents have happened due to the absence of these vital safety devices.
For years, there was the problem of vehicles sliding beneath semitrucks in rear-end crashes. This would result in the sheering off of vehicle roofs and the death of drivers and occupants within the vehicles. Tragically, decapitation was not uncommon in these incidents. Currently, rear underride guards are a requirement on semitrucks but side underride guards have yet to be required.
These 2 kinds of truck accidents have caused numerous fatalities
Driving a semitruck is an enormous responsibility from a safety perspective. These massive vehicles carry unimaginable amounts of tonnage and when a normal passenger vehicle collides with a semitruck, there's a high likelihood of catastrophic injuries and fatalities. For this reason, the drivers of 18-wheelers -- in addition to the transportation companies that employ them and maintain their trucks -- must take all possible precautions to avoid the following two common semitruck accident scenarios:
Jackknifing crashes
Avoid getting into a wide-turn trucking accident
Semitrucks are so large that they can't always navigate traffic in the way that normal automobiles do. For example, sometimes when a semitruck makes a turn through an intersection, it needs to swing out wide into a neighboring lane of traffic in order to successfully complete the maneuver. In this article, we will take a look at several possible scenarios that could result in an unintentional wide-turn trucking accident.
Turning into the left lane when making a right turn
Types of femur fractures that happen in car accidents
Your femur is the largest and strongest bone in your body, so it's very resilient to being broken. Nevertheless, the tremendous forces of a car accident are enough to break anything, which is why this kind of serious leg break is not entirely uncommon in a catastrophic auto collision. Fortunately, with the right medical treatment, doctors can do a lot to help someone suffering from a broken femur.
Before treating the injury, however, your doctor will need to determine which of the following kinds of femur fractures you're suffering from:
- Transverse fractures: These are horizontal breaks of the bone.
- Oblique fractures: These are breaks that form an angled line.
- Spiral fractures: These are breaks that create spiraling line fractures along the bone that look like candy cane stripes.
- Comminuted fractures: These are breaks that involve the bone being separated into three or more pieces.
- Compound fractures: These breaks include bone fragments that come out of the skin.
- Open fractures: These include a bone break in conjunction with a deep wound that exposes the bone.
