I have decided to share a bit more of my personal life in a new blog series called – True Stories. It would be about my life experiences in general. I plan to run this blog series every month at least so wish me luck. Here is my first of many to come, it is my personal injury story.

I was involved in a traffic accident a while ago. Myself and 2 other family members were on our way to a wedding when it happened. We came down from Cheshire to London for the wedding, and we were heading down to the venue when the accident took place. We slowed down, approaching a traffic light, and the car behind slammed right into us, and we in turn slammed into the car in front. It was a horrible experience. Our car was a complete right off and it was a miracle we got out without physical cuts and wounds.

We had to wait for the police to come assess the accident. After that was done, we exchanged insurance details and contact information. We also took as many photographs as we could.

We obviously couldn’t attend the wedding in our state. We had to wait for the recovery team to come to our rescue and that took forever. We were finally rescued and given a lift back to our hotel.

I was just in shock for the entire day, I couldn’t believe what happened. We had big plans that day but it was taken out of our hands and completely messed up.

The next day, we found it extremely hard to get up in the morning, we were in severe pains, especially the driver of our car, so we had to call the ambulance. After examining us, we discovered we were suffering from a condition called Whiplash – a type of neck injury caused by sudden movement of the head forwards, backwards or sideways, as a result of the accident, and we were given pain killers.

After a few days, we were finally able to get back home, but we were still experiencing severe pains. We had already spoken with our insurance company and the investigation process had started. But we were still undecided about making a claim for personal injuries.

I personally didn’t want to make a claim at first because of the whole stigma attached to it. Many people see you as greedy for making a personal claim but then I realised, I had lost money and time I would never get back. I was still experiencing severe pains in my body and it was affecting the quality of my life. I was under a lot of stress after the accident as anyone would imagine. I could not go to work for weeks and I also developed a condition called Amaxophobia – the fear of being a passenger, which has made commuting very hard. I still panic whenever the car I am in approaching a traffic light.

So why should I suffer for the results of an accident that was not my fault? Or the fault of our driver? Asking myself those questions encouraged me to make my personal injury claim and I am glad I did. It took months for the claim to go through. I had to have medical examinations during the time, and send a lot of documentation back and forth, not to talk of the many phone calls and emails. It was incredibly stressful, but it finally went through so it was worth the wait and the stress at the end of the day.

My advice to anyone considering a personal injury claim is to go for it as soon as possible. I wasted time over thinking and that made my process longer. Also, make sure you file your claim through a reputable personal injury law firm so your claim goes as smoothly as possible.

Have you ever been involved in a traffic accident? Did you make a personal injury claim?

*This is a collaborative post.