How To Protect Your Rights When Injured While Traveling
Getting injured is never an easy thing to deal with. Getting injured while traveling can be downright daunting and overwhelming. It can be hard to know what you’re entitled to, how to get what you need, and what steps you should be taking if you’re far away from home when an injury occurs.
The following will explore several vital things to keep in mind if you’ve been hurt while traveling. Special attention will be paid to ensuring that your rights are protected, and you are advocated for.
Don’t Accept Something That Feels Wrong
First and foremost, no matter where you get injured or what type of injury you get, it is critical that you listen to your body and speak up when something doesn’t feel right. If you’re prescribed medication, and you don’t like the side effects, ask for something different. If you’re feeling pain or discomfort and are told not to worry about it, repeat your needs clearly and express the expectations you have about them being addressed. Ask for a second opinion or a third one if you feel what you’re being told doesn’t fit your experience.
Advocating for yourself should be something that we teach children in school and at home, but because people advocating for themselves makes them harder to direct or control (and that makes a big difference when you’re teaching a class of thirty kids), many of us were not properly educated in the art of standing up for ourselves and our experiences. When you’re injured, it is critical that you speak up because your experience is a vital component of your recovery time and healing process.
Don’t Sign Anything Without A Lawyer
When you get injured, someone might try to get you to sign something. Don’t do this unless you’ve shared the papers with a lawyer first. This is especially important if you’re in a place that speaks another language than you do, or speaks a language you’re not 100% fluent in. If you contact a lawyer, they should be able to help you find a translator, and then the pair of them can go over the paperwork together and advise you. Not all countries have the same standards for dealing with injuries, so you need to be extra careful.
Get A Lawyer That Specializes In The Type Of Injury You Received
While seeking out a lawyer, you want to be sure that you find someone who deals specifically with the type of injury you’re dealing with. If you were working abroad when the incident happened, you might want a compo lawyer or workplace compensation lawyer. If you were hit by a car, you want an attorney that specializes in vehicle accidents. If you were injured on the site of a business like a hotel or a restaurant, you want a personal injury lawyer with experience dealing with businesses.
Stay Off Social Media
One of the things people can do to really mess up legal proceedings is posting about their experience online. Beyond sharing about the incident, you should rethink all social media interactions until the injury has been dealt with. Anything you like, comment, share, post, tag, or engage with can be used against you by law enforcement or the court system. Speak to your lawyer if you need more guidance in this respect, or if posting online is part of your work.
Follow Medical Recommendations
If you’ve been prescribed something like stretches or dietary changes as you’re healing, listen to these recommendations as this will display to the legal system a genuine interest in recovering, which can sometimes help your case. If you don’t like the recommendations you’re being given for any reason, seek out an additional opinion.
Address Travel Anxiety
One of the ways that getting injured while traveling can have a huge impact on your life is by making you feel afraid or nervous to travel again in the future. If you spent several nights in a foreign hospital where no one speaks your language using Google Translate to figure out what’s going on, you know how hectic and scary it can be. Put in the time and effort to address travel anxiety as it arises. You deserve to continue to have a full and enriched life post-injury.
The above information should help you keep yourself protected after you’ve been injured while traveling. Of course, every case is slightly different, and this means that an attorney who has gone over your specific incident and experience is going to have a much better idea of what needs to be done. If a lawyer suggests additional things to what is listed above, it’s a good idea to listen to these suggestions and genuinely try to understand why the advice you’re being given is being offered.
Hey there! My name is Wojtek and I am very happy that you came to my travel blog. I've been traveling the world for a few good years now and I still want more.
On my website I describe the adventures that have happened to me, you will also find here a collection of valuable tips for tourists and travelers. If you liked this article, be sure to leave a comment and read some more!
