Common Truck Accident Injuries and How a McKinney Personal Injury Lawyer Proves Damages

Highway physics never plays fair with smaller vehicles. A fully loaded tractor-trailer can weigh up to 80,000 pounds. Even at moderate speeds, that mass translates into violent forces on impact. Over years of handling these cases in and around Collin County, I’ve learned that the medical picture after a truck crash rarely lines up neatly. Injuries cluster and cascade. People don’t just suffer a broken bone or a concussion; they pick up both, plus a torn shoulder, aggravated back problems, and a spiral of complications that show up weeks later. Proving the full scope of that harm is where a seasoned McKinney personal injury lawyer earns their keep.

This article walks through the injuries that show up most often after collisions with commercial trucks, why those injuries are complex from both a medical and legal standpoint, and how a McKinney injury lawyer builds damages that hold up under scrutiny from insurers and, if needed, a North Texas jury.

The physics behind the injuries

Truck crashes deliver energy through multiple vectors. A head-on collision drives rapid deceleration across the entire body, often forcing contact with the steering wheel or deploying airbags that save lives but cause bruising and fractures. Rear-end collisions and underride events produce hyperflexion and hyperextension in the neck and spine. Side impacts twist the torso and shear ligaments. Rollover crashes combine blunt trauma with crushing forces and ejection risks if a seatbelt or latch fails.

Even seemingly minor contact can cause harm when a smaller vehicle absorbs the strike. Clients tell me they felt “shaken but okay” at the scene, only to wake up the next day with numb fingers, stabbing low back pain, or nausea and light sensitivity from a concussion. The adrenaline dump masks pain and inflates confidence that you escaped unscathed. Medical records later show a different story.

Traumatic brain injuries: the subtle and the severe

Concussions lead the list. They don’t require loss of consciousness. A rapid stop snaps the brain against the skull, setting off inflammation that can scramble attention and memory. People describe it as “cotton in my head” or “I keep losing the thread of a sentence.” These symptoms often intensify over the first 48 hours. CT scans can come back clear, which insurers like to cite as proof nothing serious happened. That’s not how neurology works. Mild traumatic brain injuries are clinical diagnoses based on symptoms, neurocognitive testing, and the patient’s history.

Diffuse axonal injuries sit farther along the spectrum. The rotational forces in a high-speed truck crash stretch and tear nerve fibers. MRI with specific sequences sometimes reveals the damage, but not always. The evidence of harm can be functional: slowed processing, mood swings, spatial disorientation. Family members become key witnesses because they see changes the patient can’t self-report accurately.

A McKinney personal injury lawyer who has tried brain injury cases doesn’t just stack medical records. They orchestrate the proof. That often means scheduling neuropsychological testing several months post-crash, when scores stabilize enough to be predictive. It also means gathering baseline data if available — old school records, work performance reviews, even standardized test scores — to compare pre- and post-injury functioning. In one Collin County case, a client’s drop in executive function scores explained why he was missing deadlines and making costly errors after returning to a project management role. The jury understood that data better than any MRI slide.

Neck and back injuries: whiplash and far more

The neck takes a beating in truck collisions. Soft-tissue strains heal with care, but many patients develop or aggravate disc injuries. A bulging or herniated cervical disc can compress nerve roots and send electric shocks down the arm, with grip weakness and dexterity loss that shows up when you try to button a shirt. Lower back disc injuries bring sciatica — shooting pain down the leg, numbness in the foot, and a stubborn ache that makes standing in a checkout line feel like a marathon.

Insurers argue these are “degenerative” problems that existed before the crash. That’s true in a narrow sense for many adults; discs dry out over time. The legal question is causation and aggravation. Did the collision turn an asymptomatic condition into a disabling one? Spine surgeons document this by correlating imaging with dermatomal patterns of pain and objective findings like decreased reflexes or positive straight-leg tests. When the clinical picture is consistent and the patient had no prior complaints, the causation case gets strong.

From a damages perspective, the cost curve bends steeply if conservative care fails. Physical therapy and injections can run in the low thousands. A single-level discectomy or fusion jumps into five figures. Add lost wages during recovery and future restrictions on heavy lifting or rotational movements, and you can see how a claim grows. A good McKinney auto accident lawyer doesn’t inflate; they map out realistic treatment paths with treating doctors and life-care planners, then tie the numbers to what you’re actually facing.

Orthopedic trauma: fractures, joint damage, and surgical hardware

Truck collisions commonly shatter wrists, forearms, and ankles as people brace for impact. The classic radius fracture from bracing against a steering wheel tends to heal, but hardware remains and range of motion rarely returns to 100 percent. Weight-bearing joints like knees and hips fare worse. Meniscal tears catch and lock with everyday movements. A tibial plateau fracture can leave arthritis that surfaces two to four years after “successful” surgery.

I’ve had clients who bounced back quickly from the initial operation but then needed a knee scope at 18 months and injections for osteoarthritis at three years. Planning for that long tail matters. An experienced McKinney injury lawyer will push for treating surgeons to address likely future procedures in writing. Even a brief note about the risk of post-traumatic arthritis can be worth six figures to the damages model when a 35-year-old will need a knee replacement a decade early.

Internal injuries: what you can’t see right away

Seatbelts save lives, but they can cause abdominal injuries during a high-force stop. The classic “seatbelt sign,” bruising along the lap or shoulder belt, warrants careful imaging because it correlates with internal damage. Spleen and liver lacerations may bleed slowly, becoming dangerous hours after the crash. A small bowel perforation can hide until infection sets in. Clients sometimes get discharged from the ER and return two days later with severe pain, fever, and a surgical emergency.

From a legal standpoint, keep everything. The discharge instructions, the phone calls to urgent care, the return-to-ER records — they knit together a timeline that refutes any claim you somehow “made it worse” by waiting. Delayed presentation is common and medically expected in these injuries.

Burn injuries and scarring: the lasting mark

Truck collisions with fuel leaks or electrical fires produce burns that leave lifelong scars. Beyond graft surgeries, burn patients face itching, tightness, and temperature sensitivity. The social toll matters too. I represented a client with facial scarring who was a frontline retail manager. Her store wanted her back, but she struggled with customer reactions. We brought in a vocational expert who explained how scarring can subtly reduce earnings even when a person remains employed. These are not “cosmetic” damages; they affect mental health and income.

In Texas, scars and disfigurement carry real weight with juries. Photographs tell the story better than words, but you must handle them sensitively. A McKinney personal injury lawyer experienced with burn cases will time the photos to show the arc: raw injury, healing stages, and final appearance after a year when scars tend to mature.

Psychological injuries: post-crash minds and bodies

Post-traumatic stress is common after violent collisions. Nightmares, flashbacks, avoidance of driving routes, panic at the sound of brakes — these symptoms often disrupt work and relationships. Insurers treat mental health injuries as speculative, especially when counseling begins late. Good lawyering connects the dots. Primary care records often include early mentions of sleep problems and irritability. Those notes support later therapy records and a diagnosis under DSM criteria.

Grief for a lost identity also surfaces. Athletes who can’t return to form, parents who can’t lift a child, professionals who lose the edge they relied on — they’re mourning something real. Texas law allows recovery for pain, mental anguish, and loss of enjoyment of life. The proof is human. Friends, coworkers, and spouses bring credibility when they describe concrete changes: skipping the weekend pickup game, turning down invitations, quitting volunteer roles. Dry medical records can’t carry that part of the damages alone.

Why truck cases differ from car cases

Commercial carriers play by a different set of rules. They must comply with federal and state regulations on driver hours, vehicle maintenance, loading, and drug and alcohol testing. When a crash happens, evidence exists beyond the police report and witness statements. There are electronic logging device data, telematics, dash cams, dispatch records, driver qualification files, and maintenance logs. If not preserved promptly, some of it disappears within days or weeks.

That’s why a McKinney car accident lawyer who regularly handles trucking cases sends a spoliation notice immediately, demanding that the carrier preserve the truck and its data. I’ve seen airbag control module downloads and ELD records settle disputes about speed and braking that eyewitnesses got wrong. We once found a pattern of late-night dispatches that pushed a driver to violate hours-of-service limits, correlating with cell phone records showing microsleeps in the minutes before impact. That evidence not only establishes fault but also supports punitive damages in the right case.

The proving ground: building damages that persuade

Insurers don’t pay what they can argue they don’t owe. Proving damages isn’t about adjectives; it’s about building a file that ties each dollar to evidence. The approach varies by case, but the backbone looks consistent when done well.

Tie each diagnosis to objective findings: imaging, lab results, surgical notes, validated testing. Prove the medical journey, not a snapshot: early complaints, referrals, adherence to therapy, documented setbacks, and prognosis. Quantify lost earnings with math, not guesswork: pay stubs, tax returns, supervisor statements, and vocational analysis when job duties change. Show future costs with credible opinions: treating physicians, life-care planners, and structured cost projections for medications, devices, and procedures. Make the human story legible: photos over time, day-in-the-life visuals, and testimony from people who knew the injured person before and after.

Five tidy bullets can’t capture the nuance of a complex case, but those pillars hold up across fact patterns. When a defense lawyer says, “We think this is just a soft-tissue claim,” a well-built file answers with a narrative supported at every turn.

The first 10 days: choices that matter more than they seem

What you do early influences both your health and your case. Get examined promptly, even if you feel mostly fine. Follow discharge instructions. If pain spikes or new symptoms appear, return for care rather than waiting it out. Keep a simple notebook or phone log noting pain levels, sleep quality, headaches, and missed activities. I’ve watched a client’s two-sentence nightly notes become pivotal when a defense expert argued her headaches were “intermittent and mild.” Her contemporaneous notes told a different story.

Talk to your employer early. Even if you expect to return soon, documenting modified duties, missed shifts, or productivity changes creates a paper trail that later supports wage-loss claims. And refer all insurer calls to your lawyer. Recorded statements given in the fog of those early days can haunt a case. A McKinney personal injury lawyer knows how to handle communications without letting details get twisted.

Medical billing in Texas: tackling the charged vs. paid trap

Texas law allows recovery of the amounts actually paid or incurred for medical expenses. That phrase “paid or incurred” means you can’t simply claim the full sticker price on a hospital bill if health insurance or contractual write-offs reduced it. Defense teams use this to push damages down. The flip side is that uninsured clients often face inflated chargemaster rates on paper, which can shock a jury if presented without context.

Experienced counsel handles this two ways. First, obtain affidavits that comply with Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 18.001 to support the reasonableness of medical charges, while preparing to counter a defense 18.001 counteraffidavit. Second, when appropriate, use medical billing experts to explain how hospital pricing works, what a “reasonable charge” looks like in Collin and Dallas counties, and why a billed amount or a paid amount may not reflect the true cost of care. Having an 18.001 strategy ready early is essential in McKinney and throughout North Texas courts.

Comparative fault and the seatbelt defense

Texas applies proportionate responsibility. If you are more than 50 percent at fault, you recover nothing. If you are 50 percent or less at fault, your damages are reduced by your percentage. Truck cases often involve arguments about sudden lane changes, blind spots, and following distances. Crash reconstruction experts map skid marks, vehicle rest positions, crush patterns, and event data recorder timing to allocate fault accurately. In practice, juries expect truck drivers to exercise heightened caution, especially in rain, traffic congestion near US-75 construction zones, or at complex interchanges.

Seatbelt nonuse used to be excluded from evidence. That changed. Now, defendants can introduce evidence of nonuse to argue for reduced damages, but only if they can show nonuse caused or enhanced the injuries. A McKinney auto accident lawyer will prepare biomechanical testimony on how belts alter occupant kinematics, minimizing the impact of this defense when it lacks a sound basis.

Dealing with multiple defendants and layered insurance

A commercial truck case McKinney truck accident lawyer 1800lionlaw.com can involve the driver, the motor carrier, a broker, a shipper, and a maintenance contractor. Each entity may carry separate policies and point fingers at the others. Texas law and federal regs influence whether a carrier can be held directly liable for negligent hiring, retention, or training, in addition to respondeat superior for the driver’s negligence.

I’ve seen cases where a broker’s decision to award a load to an unvetted carrier with poor safety metrics became the fulcrum for a large settlement. Safety Measurement System scores, prior out-of-service violations, and driver qualification gaps form the backbone of those claims. Coordinating discovery across multiple defendants takes patience and a clear schedule. The payoff can be substantial when you align liability with the parties holding meaningful coverage.

Life after the hospital: vocational and functional realities

Money doesn’t restore cartilage or erase trauma. It does pay for help that makes life workable. This is where functional capacity evaluations earn their keep. An FCE administered by a neutral therapist can objectively measure lifting capacity, endurance, and positional tolerances. Employers understand those results. A vocational expert translates limitations into real job options and wage impacts in the North Texas labor market.

One client, a warehouse lead in McKinney, could lift 60 pounds pre-crash all shift long. Post-crash, his FCE capped him at 25 pounds occasional lifting and no repetitive bending. That difference knocked him out of most warehouse roles, but a quality control job paid close to his old wage with light-duty demands. We didn’t claim total disability. We claimed a modest, well-supported reduction in lifetime earnings and the cost of additional training. The insurer paid because the numbers matched the facts.

Settlement dynamics: timing, reserves, and credibility

Insurers assign reserves early based on perceived exposure. That first impression can stick, for better or worse. Early evidence packages influence reserve setting: photos of the scene and vehicles, ER records with objective findings, early imaging, and employer notes about missed work. Months later, when you present a comprehensive demand, you’re not fighting a low reserve uphill.

Credibility governs everything. Missed appointments, large gaps in treatment without explanation, and sensational claims that don’t match records all damage credibility. So does overreaching on pain and suffering when the narrative lacks detail. A McKinney injury lawyer will coach you to be consistent, precise, and honest, including about prior injuries. Most jurors forgive a vulnerable truth far more readily than a half-truth exposed by the defense.

What makes a lawyer’s approach in McKinney effective

Local knowledge matters. Collin County juries lean practical. They expect personal responsibility and appreciate straight talk from treating doctors over hired guns. Judges keep discovery on a tight leash. Knowing which providers document thoroughly, which radiology groups produce quality reads, and which physical therapy practices help patients recover rather than just rack up visits can shape outcomes.

A McKinney personal injury lawyer grounded here also knows the roadways where bad collisions cluster: US-75, SH 121 near the tollway split, and certain stretches where construction shifts lanes and confuses out-of-town drivers. Scene familiarity helps when you’re deposing a driver who claims a blind curve where none exists.

Practical advice for injured people in Collin County

Keep it simple and consistent.

See a qualified physician early and follow the plan; ask for referrals if symptoms persist after two to three weeks. Save everything: bills, receipts, work emails about missed tasks, and mileage to medical visits. Track pain and function in short daily notes; mention sleep and headache frequency. Limit social media; photos of a single good day can be twisted out of context. Talk with a McKinney car accident lawyer before speaking at length to any insurer, even your own.

Those habits protect your health and your claim without turning your life into a litigation project.

When punitive damages come into play

Not every truck case involves recklessness. But when a carrier sends a fatigued driver out in violation of hours rules, ignores known brake defects, or encourages handheld phone use to meet unrealistic dispatch schedules, the conduct crosses a line. Texas allows exemplary damages when the evidence shows fraud, malice, or gross negligence. The standard is high and the statute caps are complex, but jurors respond when they see a company choose speed over safety. The key is documentation: policy manuals, training records, prior incident reports, and testimony from former employees can paint the picture.

The endgame: trial as a credible option

Most cases settle, but strong outcomes require being ready for trial. That doesn’t mean theatrics. It means clean exhibits, treating doctors prepared to testify without surprises, tight direct examinations, and cross-exams that highlight gaps in the defense’s story without alienating a jury. In a recent matter, a defense biomechanical expert claimed our client couldn’t have suffered a concussion at the measured delta-V. He hadn’t reviewed the paramedic notes describing disorientation and vomiting at the scene. A two-minute cross built around those notes undercut his entire opinion.

When a defense team believes you will try the case well, settlement offers improve. A McKinney auto accident lawyer with a track record in Collin and neighboring counties carries that leverage into negotiations. It is not bravado; it is preparation.

Final thoughts for people hurting after a truck crash

Truck accidents break routines, bones, and sometimes futures. Healing isn’t linear. You will have good weeks and bad ones, and the legal process will feel slow. Your job is to focus on getting better and telling the truth about what you’re living through. The legal team’s job is to gather evidence, protect it from being spun, and present it in a way that makes sense to adjusters and jurors.

If you’re looking for help, speak with a McKinney personal injury lawyer who handles trucking cases regularly. Ask about their approach to preserving electronic data, how they build medical proof beyond imaging, and what they do to plan for future care and wage impacts. The right fit is a lawyer who listens hard, makes a plan grounded in your specific injuries, and has the spine to try the case if that’s what justice requires.

Contact Us

Thompson Law

Address: 321 N Central Expy STE 305, McKinney, TX 75071

Phone: (214) 390-9737

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Pub: 13 Aug 2025 12:15 UTC

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