County: Mahoning County, Ohio

City: Youngstown, Ohio

Date: September 7, 2010

Type: Car Accident
 
A vehicle struck a pole near Youngstown State University in the early hours of the morning September 7. The accident occurred on Madison Avenue across from a YSU student housing facility. During the cleanup, a transformer sparked, causing it to explode. No one was hurt during the explosion, however it did leave approximately 3,000 people without power that morning.

Many times such one-car accidents lead to serious injuries as the vehicle strikes an inflexible pole. During such crashes, the majority of the force of the collision is transferred into the vehicle and to the occupants of the car or truck.  The human body is not meant to absorb such impacts, and major neck and back injuries are possible. In addition, the rapid deceleration that occurs in such impacts causes acceleration / deceleration injuries to the neck commonly known as whiplash. Less commonly known is that such impacts can cause severely herniated discs, which cannot be conclusively diagnosed without an expensive test such as a magnetic resonance imaging study, or MRI. These tests show the size, direction and severity of the herniated disc, whether they are pressing on any nerve roots or the spinal cord itself, and whether or not the injury is more likely than not new or older than a year or so.  Proving an injury is from the accident is an important part of the personal injury process, and the MRI and tests like it are invaluable tools in explaining in objective detail whether an injury is more likely than not caused by the accident. Remember the burden of proof is not to show for sure that the accident caused an injury, which would be an almost impossible burden to meet, but that simply it is more likely than not from the accident. This reasonable degree of medical probability is the actual standard in Ohio. If a doctor is 51 percent sure that an injury is from the accident, than legally that may be enough for a jury if they believe the doctor.
 
In 2008, Mahoning County, Ohio (population 257,555) had a total of 6,851 reported accidents, with 18 of those being fatal (19 total fatalities). 1,831 of the total reported crashes were injury crashes, with 2,742 injuries. Youngstown, Ohio (population 82,026) had a total of 1,873 reported accidents in 2008, with 7 of them being fatal. Mahoning County saw a decrease in total reported accidents in 2009 (6,311). 


If you've been seriously injured or have lost a loved one in a Youngstown truck / car accident, call the Mahoning County auto accident and wrongful death attorneys / lawyers at Chester Law Group at 1-800-218-4243 or order your FREE BOOK entitled The Insider’s Guide to Handling Ohio Accident Claims at www.ChesterLaw.com.