Henderson Traumatic Brain Injury Attorney

Brain Injuries

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Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyers Serving Henderson & Las Vegas

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a disruption in the normal function of the brain caused by a bump, blow, or jolt to the head, or by a penetrating head injury, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). TBIs send well over a million Americans to emergency departments each year, and the most severe cases can mean permanent disability or death (CDC). The Ruiz Law Firm represents brain injury victims and their families throughout Henderson, Las Vegas, Summerlin, and Clark County, and our attorneys — Lawrence Ruiz, Andrea Vieira, David J. Dzarnoski, and Mikela Babayan Mikhail — assemble the medical experts, life-care planners, and economists a serious TBI claim requires.

Sometimes TBI symptoms appear right after the accident. Other times it can take days or weeks for symptoms to surface — a delay that makes these claims uniquely challenging and is exactly why early documentation matters.

There are different levels of TBIs. Mild TBIs often result in concussions, moderate TBIs can cause loss of consciousness, and severe TBIs can lead to prolonged unconsciousness, coma, or lasting amnesia. The section below explains how doctors actually grade that severity.

Concussion vs. Severe TBI: Understanding the Difference

A concussion is a mild TBI caused by a bump, blow, or jolt to the head that temporarily disrupts normal brain function. Most people do not lose consciousness, and initial symptoms — headache, fogginess, sensitivity to light — can feel minor enough to dismiss. That is a serious mistake. Repeated concussions and even a single untreated concussion can produce lasting cognitive problems, chronic headaches, depression, and sleep disorders.

Moderate and severe TBIs involve more extensive damage. A moderate TBI typically causes loss of consciousness for minutes to hours and can produce confusion lasting days or weeks. Severe TBIs — caused by high-speed crashes, falls from height, or violent impacts — can mean prolonged unconsciousness, coma, permanent cognitive or physical impairment, and the need for lifelong supervised care. The gap between a "mild" concussion and a severe TBI is enormous, but both deserve serious medical and legal attention.

How Doctors Grade TBI Severity: The Glasgow Coma Scale

When you understand how the medical system grades a brain injury, you can better understand why your claim is worth what it is worth. Doctors most often classify TBI severity using the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), which scores a patient's eye, verbal, and motor responses and produces a single number that maps to a severity level.

| Severity | GCS score | Typical presentation | Imaging notes | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Mild (concussion) | 13–15 | Brief or no loss of consciousness; headache, confusion, "fogginess" | CT/MRI often normal even when symptoms are real | | Moderate | 9–12 | Loss of consciousness from minutes to hours; lasting confusion | Imaging frequently shows bleeding, bruising, or swelling | | Severe | 3–8 | Prolonged unconsciousness or coma; high risk of permanent deficits | Imaging usually shows significant injury |

GCS severity ranges per the Cleveland Clinic (mild 13–15) and standard neurological references (moderate 9–12, severe 3–8).

A key takeaway for your case: a "mild" rating on this scale does not mean a minor injury. Many people with a GCS of 13–15 go on to suffer months or years of cognitive, emotional, and physical problems. Insurers often seize on the word "mild" to downplay a claim, which is one reason these cases benefit from a lawyer who understands the medicine.

How a TBI Is Diagnosed

Diagnosing a brain injury usually combines several tools, and understanding them helps explain why imaging-negative injuries are still real and compensable:

• Glasgow Coma Scale assessment — the initial bedside scoring of responsiveness described above
• CT scan — fast imaging that detects bleeding, skull fractures, and swelling; it is the first-line scan in an emergency
• MRI — more detailed imaging that can reveal damage a CT misses, often used in follow-up
• Neuropsychological testing — structured cognitive testing that measures memory, attention, processing speed, and executive function, frequently the strongest objective evidence in a mild TBI

A critical, often misunderstood point: a mild TBI can show no abnormality on a standard CT scan or MRI even when the person has genuine, disabling symptoms. Concussions in particular frequently leave normal imaging. That is why insurers' "your scan was clean" argument is medically wrong, and why a documented baseline, consistent treatment records, and neuropsychological testing carry so much weight in these claims.

Why Delayed Symptoms Make TBI Cases Difficult

Brain injuries do not always announce themselves. After a car accident or a slip and fall, adrenaline masks pain, and the brain's damage may not produce obvious symptoms for days. Swelling, micro-bleeds, and chemical changes in the brain can develop gradually. You might feel fine in the emergency room but notice increasing headaches, difficulty concentrating, mood swings, or memory gaps in the following weeks.

This delay creates two problems. First, people sometimes skip medical care or are discharged without imaging that would reveal the injury. Second, insurers later argue that because you seemed fine initially, your current symptoms must be caused by something else. Seeing a doctor immediately after any accident involving head trauma — even if you feel okay — creates the documented baseline that protects your claim.

Long-Term Effects of a Brain Injury

Depending on severity, a TBI can produce symptoms that last months, years, or permanently. Documented long-term effects include:

• Cognitive deficits — problems with memory, concentration, processing speed, and decision-making
• Chronic headaches — including post-traumatic headache and migraine
• Mood disorders — depression, anxiety, and increased irritability
• Sleep disturbance — insomnia or excessive fatigue
• Personality changes — shifts in temperament, impulse control, or emotional regulation that loved ones often notice first
• Post-traumatic seizures — a recognized complication of moderate and severe TBI

These effects can be permanent and may not fully emerge for weeks after the injury, which is one more reason prompt evaluation and ongoing documentation matter for both your health and your claim. We do not promise any specific outcome, but we work to document each effect with medical evidence.

Common Causes of TBI in Nevada

Most of the brain injury cases we see in the Las Vegas valley arise from preventable accidents, including:

• Motor vehicle collisions, including a Las Vegas car accident and truck or motorcycle crashes on I-15, US-95, and the valley's surface streets — motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of TBI
• Slip and fall accidents in casinos, hotels, construction sites, and other commercial properties
• Workplace accidents, particularly in construction and warehousing
• Pedestrian and bicycle accidents
• Assaults

A violent impact severe enough to injure the brain can also damage the spine; many of our clients face co-occurring spinal cord injuries. When a brain injury proves fatal, the family may have a wrongful death claim in addition to any survival action.

How Nevada Law Applies to Your TBI Claim

Nevada's personal injury statute of limitations gives you generally two years from the date of your injury to file a lawsuit (NRS 11.190(4)(e)). If the brain injury caused a fatality, the wrongful death filing period is also generally two years from the date of death. Waiting diminishes evidence, makes witnesses harder to locate, and — if you wait too long — can cost you the right to recover entirely.

Nevada uses modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar (NRS 41.141). If the other side argues you contributed to the accident — for example, that you were speeding or not wearing a seatbelt — your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault. As long as you are found 50% or less responsible, you can still recover. Our job is to document the other party's negligence and push back on attempts to shift blame onto you.

When the at-fault driver is uninsured or underinsured, your own UM/UIM policy can become critical. Nevada requires minimum liability limits of $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident, amounts that can be exhausted quickly in a severe TBI case. Identifying every layer of available coverage — the at-fault party's liability policy, your own UM/UIM policy, any commercial policies on the premises where you were injured — is a foundational step in any serious TBI case.

What Compensation Can Cover

Brain injury cases involve some of the highest damages of any personal injury claim because the costs often extend far into the future. A successful claim can pursue:

• Emergency and acute medical costs — hospital stays, imaging, surgery, and initial rehabilitation
• Ongoing and future medical care — outpatient therapy, neuropsychological treatment, medications, and specialist visits for years or decades
• In-home care and assisted living — when a severe TBI requires round-the-clock supervision
• Lost wages and reduced earning capacity — including income you will never be able to earn because of cognitive or physical limitations
• Pain and suffering — the physical pain, emotional distress, and diminished quality of life that follow a brain injury
• Loss of enjoyment of life — the activities, relationships, and independence the injury has taken from you

Projecting future costs accurately requires medical experts, life-care planners, and economists. We bring in those specialists so that a settlement or verdict reflects the full scope of what you will need, not just the bills you have received so far.

Why TBI Cases Are High-Value — and How Life-Care Plans Work

Brain injury claims often carry higher value than other injury cases for one reason: a severe TBI can require medical care, therapy, and personal assistance for years or even decades, so the future costs frequently dwarf the immediate hospital bills. Valuing the claim accurately means projecting those future needs, not just totaling the bills already received.

That is the job of a certified life-care planner, a specialist who reviews the medical record and builds a detailed, itemized projection of everything the injury will require going forward — future surgeries and therapy, medications, attendant or in-home care, assistive equipment, home modifications, and routine follow-up. An economist then reduces those projected costs to present value, calculates lost earning capacity, and accounts for inflation, so the number reflects what the future care actually costs in today's dollars.

We do not promise any specific result, but assembling this full future-cost picture is essential. Without it, a settlement can fall far short of what a brain injury victim will genuinely need over a lifetime — which is exactly the outcome an insurer is hoping for.

Contact The Ruiz Law Firm to discuss how a life-care plan could apply to your case, or call (702) 850-1717.

How We Prove a TBI Claim (Proving Causation)

The central battle in most brain injury cases is causation — the insurer's core defense is that your symptoms come from something other than the accident, often arguing a pre-existing condition or that "you seemed fine" at the scene. Overcoming that defense is a matter of evidence, and we build it methodically:

• Medical records and imaging — emergency-room documentation, CT and MRI results, and the treating record that ties your injury to the accident
• A documented baseline — the immediate post-accident evaluation that establishes your condition before the insurer can claim the symptoms are unrelated
• Treating-physician and neuropsychologist testimony — clinicians who can connect your cognitive testing and ongoing symptoms to the trauma
• Life-care planner and economist analysis — to quantify the future-care cost the injury will demand
• Rebutting the "pre-existing condition" argument — using prior medical history, work performance, and witness accounts to show how you functioned before the injury and how you changed after it

Because a mild TBI may not appear on imaging, the consistency of your treatment and the strength of your baseline often decide the case. The earlier we are involved, the more of this evidence we can preserve.

Why Act Early

Evidence fades. Surveillance footage is deleted. Witnesses move. The sooner you contact an attorney after a brain injury, the more we can preserve. We work on contingency — you pay no attorney fee unless we recover for you. That means there is no financial barrier to getting advice right after your accident, which is exactly when it matters most. To see how a TBI claim fits within our broader injury practice, learn what to look for in the best personal injury lawyer in Las Vegas.

Contact Us Today

To speak with a brain injury lawyer serving Henderson, Las Vegas, Summerlin, and Clark County, call The Ruiz Law Firm at (702) 850-1717. You can also contact The Ruiz Law Firm to request a free consultation by filling out our online form, and a member of our team will be happy to discuss your case with you.

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