Knowing what to do immediately after an auto accident is vitally important. Our personal injury attorney, Barry Carothers, offers advice based on based on 21 years of experience representing the injured.

Regardless of whether you hire a personal injury attorney, here are some things to do if you are involved in an auto accident:

1. Have a report made by police immediately. Never agree to leave the police out of it or to handle the matter privately. If police have not been called it is difficult to prove an accident even occurred, much less who was at fault.
2. Seek competent medical attention immediately. If you think you might be hurt at the scene of an accident, be safe and take the ambulance to the hospital to get checked out.
3. Follow your doctor’s advice. If you are supposed to follow up in two days, follow up in two days.
4. How much are you entitled for pain, suffering, mental anguish, etc.? Even if you knew how to calculate it, in Florida you cannot recover anything for those things if you were injured in an auto accident and did not suffer a permanent injury.
5. Consider consulting an experienced personal injury attorney. Even if you intend on going it alone, you can obtain a free consultation to determine the pros and cons of doing so.