This is Part 20 in our NYC personal injury video series: “What Should I Do After A Car Accident?”
Transcript:
The first thing you need to do is pull your car over to the side of the road and check to make sure you’re all right because it’s scary. You’re nervous. You’re stressed. But you need to make sure that you’re all right and your family’s all right.
The next thing that you should definitely do is to call the police. If the police respond to the car accident, they’ll be able to check you out and see if anyone is hurt in your vehicle. You should also, if you can, take some photographs of the scene of the accident and the other car.
The most important thing, of course, is how you feel, your health, so you should wait for the police to arrive to the scene and you should speak to them about how the accident happened and you should try not to speak to the other driver if you can.
Well, if you speak to the other driver, they may, depending on how the accident happened, if it’s a rear end accident, they may or may not blame you for stopping short. You may say things to them that you don’t want to say that are going to be on record. So, it’s best to just sit in your car, wait for the police, and speak to the police.
When the ambulance arrives, if you’re feeling pain in parts of your body you should definitely go in the ambulance to the hospital. If you have family members there as well, you need to have them go to the hospital to get checked out as well because right after an accident happens, you’re going to be feeling this hyper-adrenaline rush, this stress, and you may or may not feel pain right away, so it’s good to get it checked out.