After an accident causing paralysis, the priority is medical care. But once you’re able to think beyond the emergency, these steps can protect your ability to recover:
- Request and preserve incident information: case numbers, responding agency names, and any report identifiers.
- Write down your timeline while it’s fresh: where you were, what happened immediately before impact, weather/lighting conditions, and who witnessed the event.
- Keep all medical paperwork together: emergency notes, imaging results, discharge instructions, and follow-up visit summaries.
- Avoid recorded statements without guidance: insurers may ask questions that later become inconsistent with the medical record.
In Illinois, you generally have a limited window to file—catastrophic injury claims can require time to gather medical evidence and reconstruct events. Getting organized early helps prevent delays from harming your claim.


