The First Weeks
With the injured person in the ICU or a rehab unit, the people closest to them usually end up doing this part.
Stick with every part of the plan, from surgery follow-ups to inpatient rehab to therapy closer to home. Request the crash or incident report and note the case number. Photograph the hazard before it changes: a loose railing, a shallow pool, a missing guard on a platform, a dark stairway. List anyone who saw it or rushed to help, from a neighbor or bystander to a foreman. Open a spreadsheet or notebook for costs: miles driven to rehab, parking garages, wheelchairs and lifts, paid caregivers, all of it. Before any release or settlement paper gets signed, families often call a lawyer.
How These Injuries Happen on the Strand
Spinal injuries in Horry County come from crashes on US-501, SC-22 and the Bypass, motorcycle wrecks on rally weekends, dives into hotel pools or off docks along the Waterway, falls from balconies and job site accidents in the growing neighborhoods inland.
Your Time to File
Most South Carolina injury claims must be filed within three years.1 Letters back and forth with an adjuster won't hold off the deadline, which is for filing suit.2 If a state or local government entity is responsible, the deadline is generally two years, or three with a qualifying verified claim.3 Special rules and caps may also apply.4
Want someone to look at your situation?
Talk with our team about what happened and ask the questions on your mind.
What a Claim May Include
Depending on the facts, a spinal cord injury claim may include past and future medical care, rehab, assistive devices, home changes, ongoing personal care, lost income, reduced earning ability, pain and suffering and other losses. What's available depends on the evidence and the law.5 Every line in that cost notebook may end up mattering.
Read more on spinal cord injury claims statewide.
Talk With Us
A spinal cord injury reshapes work, home and family. We want to know how you lived before: your job, your house, your family and what you did for fun.
When family helps with records and calls, the injured person's wishes stay at the center, and decisions remain theirs if they can make them. Being a spouse or parent doesn't automatically give someone authority to settle a claim; a power of attorney or court appointment may be needed.6
We take cases across South Carolina, including Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand. Our office is on King Street in Charleston. The first conversation can happen by phone.
See also catastrophic injuries in Myrtle Beach. Tell us how your days go now.
South Carolina Law on This
- Most personal injury claims in South Carolina must be filed within three years.1
- South Carolina's statute of limitations generally sets the deadline for filing a lawsuit in court. Simply opening a claim with an insurance company or negotiating with an insurance adjuster does not stop the statute of limitations from running.2
- Lawsuits under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act generally must be filed within two years after the loss was or should have been discovered. A three-year deadline may apply if a qualifying verified claim was first filed under the Act.3
- Claims against a South Carolina state or local government agency have their own filing deadline, which can be shorter, and there could be caps on damages under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act, depending on the facts of the case.4
- Depending on the circumstances, a South Carolina personal injury claim for a serious injury may include compensation for past and future medical treatment, rehabilitation, assistive devices, ongoing personal care, home modifications, lost income, reduced earning capacity, pain and suffering, and other losses caused by the injury. The amount and types of compensation available depend on the evidence and applicable law.5
- In South Carolina, being an injured adult's spouse, parent or adult child does not automatically give someone legal authority to settle a personal injury claim or make binding legal decisions for that person. Depending on the circumstances, authority may come from a valid power of attorney, a court-appointed conservator or another legally recognized arrangement, and a guardian ad litem may be required in certain litigation involving an incapacitated person.6
- A South Carolina property owner is not automatically responsible for a diving or other recreational injury. Liability can depend on the visitor's status, the condition of the property, what the owner knew, warnings, and the injured person's own conduct. South Carolina also has recreational-use laws that may limit property-owner liability in qualifying circumstances, though they do not automatically apply to every private dock or recreational property.7
- Underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage is optional coverage on your own auto policy that can pay when the at-fault driver's liability limits are too low to cover your losses.8
- Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage on your own auto policy can pay when the at-fault driver has no liability insurance, and in some hit-and-run crashes.9
- South Carolina auto liability policies generally must include uninsured motorist coverage, and insurers must offer underinsured motorist coverage.10
- Most injuries that happen on the job in South Carolina go through the workers' compensation system, which has its own rules, and usually limits suing your own employer.11
- In South Carolina, an employee injured at work may be able to receive workers' compensation benefits and also pursue a personal injury claim against a responsible third party, such as another driver. The workers' compensation insurer may have a right to reimbursement from any settlement or judgment. Special rules and deadlines apply when pursuing both claims.12
- An injured worker in South Carolina generally must tell the employer about a work accident right away, and no later than 90 days after it, to receive workers' compensation, unless an exception applies.13
- A South Carolina workers' compensation claim generally must be filed with the Workers' Compensation Commission within two years after the accident, or after a death it caused. Telling the employer does not count as filing. Occupational diseases and repetitive trauma follow different rules.14
Frequently Asked Questions
Doctors can't say yet whether I'll walk again. Should I wait?
That uncertainty is common early on, but the filing clock keeps running, and talking with an insurer doesn't pause it.2 So it makes sense to get a lawyer's view while the prognosis is still open.
My son was hurt diving off a dock at a friend's house on the Waterway. Is the owner responsible?
Not automatically. It can depend on his status as a visitor, the dock's condition, what the owner knew, any warnings and what he knew about the risk, and recreational-use laws may limit an owner's liability in some cases.7
The driver who hit me barely had insurance. What else is there?
Sources
- S.C. Code § 15-3-530
- S.C. Code §§ 15-3-20 and 15-3-530
- S.C. Code §§ 15-78-80 and 15-78-110
- S.C. Code §§ 15-78-110 and 15-78-120
- S.C. Code §§ 15-32-210 et seq. (punitive damages); South Carolina tort decisions on compensatory damages
- S.C. Code Title 62, Article 5 (guardianship and conservatorship) and §§ 62-8-101 et seq.; South Carolina powers of attorney law
- S.C. Code § 27-3-10 et seq.
- S.C. Code § 38-77-160
- S.C. Code §§ 38-77-150 and 38-77-170
- S.C. Code §§ 38-77-150 and 38-77-160
- S.C. Code § 42-1-540
- S.C. Code § 42-1-560
- S.C. Code § 42-15-20
- S.C. Code §§ 42-15-20 and 42-15-40
This page is general information about South Carolina law, not legal advice for your situation. Every case depends on its own facts.
