San Francisco Eye Injury Lawyers

The San Francisco California eye injury attorneys at the Law Offices of DiMarco | Araujo | Montevideo are ready to be stand by your side throughout the legal process. They have helped thousands of people over the last thirty plus years and they are ready to diligently help you. We want to take the burden of the legal process off of your back so you can focus on healing from your eye injury.

Maximum Compensation

Your first goal is to heal properly, quickly and reach your maximum medical improvement. Your second goal is probably to receive the maximum compensation that you are rightly due under the law. To set yourself up for the best recovery, it is important to discuss your case early on with one of our experienced lawyers who are experienced with eye injury case law. Regardless of whether your eye injury happened in public, at home, at work, while playing a sport, in an accident, or anywhere else, our work injury, workers’ compensation and personal injury law firm will work hard and fight for you. Call us today at (415) 200-0701.

Definition: Eye Injuries

Eye injuries are harm to any part of your eyes. They are usually when the eye, eyelid, or retina has been fractured, perforated, scratched, penetrated, burned by UV rays, burned by chemicals, cut, or displaced. Being able to keep and protect as much of your vision as is possible is the first objective of most treatments for injured eyes. Eye injuries causes can be separated into two main types: physical causes and chemical causes.

Physical Causes of Injuries to the Eye

The unique design of our eye has many natural protections against minor trauma including the fact the eyes are inset, the eyelashes, the eyelids, and the eye’s quick reflexes. The following are injuries that might get beyond those natural defenses: an elbow or finger to the eye, flying shards or pieces of glass, wood, metal, or brick, work injury, skateboarding injuries, car or automobile accidents, fistfights, violence, defective products, sports injuries like football eye injury, basketball eye injury, tennis eye injury, baseball/softball eye injury, hockey eye injury, racquetball eye injury, soccer eye injury, badminton eye injury, boxing eye injury, wrestling eye injury, lacrosse eye injury, or ice skating eye injury, pedestrian accidents, bicycle accidents, firecracker accidents, paper eye scratches, BB gun accidents, crosswalk accidents, motorcycle accidents, and tripping, slipping and falling.

Chemical Causes of Injuries to the Eye

Many types of chemicals can be harmful if they get into your eyes. The amount of stinging and how severe that stinging is does not correlate directly with how bad that chemical is for your eye. Furthermore, chemicals that do not cause that much of a sting still could be doing a lot of damage. Some alkaline (basic) chemicals are perfect examples of this situation in that they won’t cause your eyes much pain but they will cause damage to your vision and your eyes. Basic chemicals have a high pH. They include many types of cleaning fluids like metal polishes, ammonia, cement, lime, most oven cleaners, and chalk dust.

Acids have a low pH. They might only damage the front of the eye. Some acids that cause eye injuries are hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid and sulfurous acid.

Irritants are chemicals that have a neutral pH (they are not basic or acidic). A common example of an irritant is pepper spray.

More Eye Injury Causes

Additional causes for eye injuries are corrosive fumes, welding flashes, hot liquids, laser beams, diseases, and molten metal. Calling a doctor is important after any eye injury.

Symptoms of Eye Injuries

There is quite a range for the symptoms of eye injuries since it depends on the severity and location of the injury. The symptoms might include bruising around the eye, temporary blindness, eye redness, pain, inability to keep the eye open, tearing, swelling, sensitivity to light, double vision, and the difficulty or inability to move the injured eye.

Eye Injury Results

Unfortunately, serious eye injuries can have many painful results with some of them being irreparable. When a foreign object has entered the eye it is called penetrating eye trauma. When an object has both entered and exited the eye it is called perforating eye trauma. When the eye is intact and it’s still in place after it has been hit with force or trauma is called non-penetrating eye trauma. A blowout fracture of the eye has occurred when blunt forces (eg: a flying ball) has fractured the eye. Other results of eye injuries include arc eye, blood in the eye, snow blindness, corneal abrasions, eyelid lacerations, orbital fractures, traumatic optic neuropathy, and hemorrhaging. Eyes can be poked out by blunt force, a tree branch, a flying object, or a piece of equipment. Some complications that happen because of eye injuries include corneal scarring, retinal detachment, and post-traumatic glaucoma.

Eye Injured While Working

We have fought for people with eye injuries since the late 1970s with their workers’ compensation claims for injuries suffered while at work or in the scope of employment. The usual causes for work related injuries to the eyes are: motorcycle accidents, falling objects, tractors, mine equipment accidents, truck accidents, slip, trip and fall injuries, conveyor belts, car/automotive accidents, working with and around heavy objects, table saw accidents, and construction equipment accidents. The San Francisco work injury law firm of DiMarco | Araujo | Montevideo will do their best to protect your rights for workers’ compensation claims as well as personal injury cases for eye injuries. We have a long history of success investigating cases and injury circumstances looking for a third party that is also at fault in order to maximize your possible recovery under the law. We will also look after you with your employee because under California Workers’ Compensation law, your employer must pay you disability while you are unable to work and they cannot penalize or fire you for filing a workers’ compensation claim.

Laser Eye Surgery

The number of laser eye surgeries that are performed in the US has increased dramatically over the two decades. These procedures do not always go perfectly. Negative side-effects and failed eye surgeries are possible. The result can potentially be painful, quite distracting, cause a headache and may have rather adverse results for your vision (eg: blurred vision).

Detached Retina

The retina collects and interprets the images that our eye sees and converts them into messages for the brain. This part of our eye can detach or peel off after an injury, trauma, or swelling.

About Black Eyes

Black eyes are also known as ecchymosis. The dark blue and black color that appears around the eye actually comes from swelling under our skin after an injury to the face, head, or eyes. It does not actually signal that an eye injury took place but please know that the eye could also have been injured.

Treatment: Eye Injuries

Patches are one treatment option for physical eye injuries. Two distinct types of patches are used for eye injury treatment but have different applications. They are shield patches and pressure patches. Shield patches are used when the injured eye has been OK’d by a doctor that the injured patient should and can open their eye under the patch. The doctor also chooses this type of patch if they do not want to put any tension on the injured eye.

Pressure patches, on the other hand, are used when the doctor wants the victim to actually keep tension on the eye. These patches also keep the injured person from opening their eye. Eye surgery may be needed if the eye or orbit has fractured or there are other serious injury symptoms or problems. For eye lacerations, stitching is another potential treatment. For chemical eye injuries, sterile water might be used to flush the eyes. It is crucial to get medical help for all eye injuries.

Eye Surgery

These days, there are many surgery options for eyes. Some common surgeries for eyes are vitreo-retinal surgery, cataract surgery, oculoplastic surgery (or reconstructing the eye), canaloplasty, glaucoma surgery, eye muscle surgery, corneal surgery, and eyelid surgery.

Free Initial Consultation – Call Us

Call the San Francisco eye injury attorneys right now to setup your free case evaluation and initial consultation. You will be able to speak with an attorney who will discuss how your injury occurred, where it happened and what you have done since. They will answer all of your questions and give you a clear understanding of what could come next. We work for our clients on a contingency basis so you will not pay us or owe us anything unless and until we win your injury case.

The San Francisco, California eye injury lawyers at DiMarco | Araujo | Montevideo will come to you at your home or your hospital room if you are unable to come to our office. We are available to meet during Monday through Friday between 8:30am and 5:30pm. Our attorneys are also very willing to meet you in the evening and on Saturdays and Sundays by appointment.

Law Firm of DiMarco | Araujo | Montevideo
San Francisco, California
(415) 200-0701