Hello, everyone. Hello? There. So I'm gonna be recording my section of the workshop from the other day. hopefully you find this part valuable the whole point of this is obviously after a few cold collision.

Many as there's many aspects involved to recovery. Part of that's your Bo your body, right. that's what I'm gonna be chatting about your mind. So that's why I wanted Kim law. There she's a registered psychologist and really helping overcoming any Neurological or brain activities that can be impeding your recovery.

And obviously sometimes people do have permanent impairment. Severe injuries and can severely impact their quality of life. And you know, if you're, if you're have a spinal cord injury and you can't use your legs anymore after a collision, well, that's really serious and it's gonna be life changing. So then we need the legal system involved and that's why we had him there.

Sorry, you weren't able to make it but it was really great. and I think everyone. there shared. well, I know Kim and Joe shared fantastic information and I hope what I shared was also valuable. So we're gonna go over that right now. So I don't have a coin here. It's hard to do over screen, but pretend I'm flipping a coin.

What's what's your choice, heads or tails. So just think of that. In your mind right now. And the reason this is important is if you pick heads. Congratulations. You likely are to gonna be feeling pretty good in about within less than a year or so. You're gonna recover Folan do great. But everyone else, if you didn't pick heads, if you got tails well,

Statistically the odds of having chronic pain after a vehicle collision are basically the flip of a coin. About 30 to 50% of people who have symptoms after a vehicle collision, still have symptoms up to one year later. And which is a crazy high number. If you think about it. Sometimes people think, well, you know, I've, I've had this problem before.

I've had this neck pain before I've had these headaches before I've had back pain or. Any of these issues before it's not a big deal. It's gonna get better. But statistically those chances aren't very much in our favor. This cover is a book that I wrote. You can get that on Amazon. If you like.

Edmonton Edmontonians recover faster from the pain suffering of a car collision. And I like this diagram cuz it kind of highlights a lot of things that people kind of say when, when, they come in the office here they're in a vehicle collision and they have a lot of pain and problems, but they, their car is fine and they feel fine. They can live with it. It's not that bad.

But again, statistically up to fifth percent of people have these problems still one year later. So how can we make it more likely for you to make a full recovery? So you can put this collision or accident behind you and not have it. Significantly impact your quality of life moving forward.

A lot of times people think that more damage. To a car means that you're gonna have more severe injuries that you know, it's just a minor fender bender. There's barely a scratch on it. You should be fine, right? And if a car is totally destroyed. You might be really hurt, really injured.

But we know that this isn't the case. This. This isn't the case at all. We are not made of bone or we are not made of metal and steel and cars aren't made out of flesh and bone. Right. And cars are meant to kind of get banged up. And we we don't have as much tolerance for that and we all know, or I'm sure I know.

A lot or a handful of people that I've talked to. That have been in severe. injuries. Or severe collisions rather thrown from their car. The car totally demolished, totally destroyed, and they feel completely fine. have barely a scratch on them. And I've had people in the past who have been in seemingly minor collisions or minor fender benders.

And they feel fine initially. But they may wake up a week or two weeks even later and they can't move and they're in debilitating pain and it significantly. Impacts their quality of life. So. We gotta ask ourselves, why is it that vehicle collisions are a little different than other types of injuries?

Slip and fall. Typically normal tissue healing time is about eight weeks, 12 weeks, sometimes a little longer or a little less. But typically in a normal situation. Injuries should heal within about three months or 12 weeks. But why is it that up to 50% of vehicle collision accidents? Injuries from those.

Are still there present a year later. And that's what we're really gonna get in today. So when I practiced in Lloydminster, I had a patient. That I was treating for back pain and some neck problems. And time went on and he got a lot better. And then we said, okay, come on back. If something's bothering you you know, down the road. Well, I saw him a couple weeks later, actually. And he had been rear-ended. He was driving a truck and trailer. And he was barely nudged. He barely even felt the actual impact happen. Car had rear-ended him And kind of bumped him just a little bit like this. He said he barely felt it. He got outta the car, felt fine.

Went and checked on The other driver and they were okay. Their car wasn't, but the person was all right. And, you know, time went on. Well, next couple days later, his neck started feeling a little stiff, a little tight. And he decided to come in again. Cause he had help last time.

So he had come in again and we did a full workup and diagnosed what was going on. I told him. You know, You're gonna be a little stiff. And sore over the next couple days, I gave him some exercises to do. These are very important to do, make sure you do them. And we'll follow up in a week. That's what I said, something along those lines, And he was all right with that.

So a week went by and then two weeks went by and three weeks went by and I ended up seeing him about four or five weeks later. And he'd come into the office. And his wife was walking him in. This is a big strong guy. and His wife was walking him in he's. It looked like he had a very hard time balancing.

He had dark. Sunglasses on shades on. He was having, you know, I was kind of shocked. I was at the front desk when he had walked in. I was like, what the hell happened to you? So we went back into the, into the treatment room. And we got to talking well, it turns out that he said, well, you know, I was still a little tight and sore After my visit with you last time. So I decided to go get a massage and I've been getting physio done. Every single day. Since I've seen you last. So within a couple weeks, period of time, he had probably had 20, 25 treatment sessions. And I say the word treatment quite loosely here. And he was just a wreck. It.

It was probably one of the top five worst injuries. That I've seen in my years of practice so far. So all this to say, is that just because there's. Minor damage that doesn't mean that your injuries aren't quite severe and quite impactful on your quality of life.

I had moved on from that practice afterwards. I'm not sure how they fared after that. But there's a reason I give suggested. Treatment approaches. And there's a reason I don't suggest massage for 20 days in a row. Sometimes things like this happen.

Okay. So the good news is that. There is a path. To help reduce the chance of reduce the odds of. Developing chronic persistent pain after a collision. So instead of 30 to 50, we can significantly reduce that. And if you do end up with. Chronic persistent. Problems, we can reduce the odds of those being high impact on your quality of life or said another way

Sometimes people do end up with chronic pain afterwards. But there's a difference between chronic pain, where you can't function doing any type of chores are very difficult and extremely painful. Compared to reoccurring issues. Or constant pain, but very low grade where it's very easily managed conservatively.

And it doesn't. signif significantly impact your ability to. live life. So there is a path to do this. But first I just want to go over a couple of. Different things that are very common after being involved in a motor vehicle collision. So, what are the symptoms? Now everyone knows about neck pain. Some people know about headaches. But the reality is, is that in a vehicle collision, you're getting thrown around by thousands of pounds of steel. Your whole body's getting thrown around either you know, forward back like this.

If it's a side collision, then you're gonna kind of look back and forth like this. Sometimes our. hands hit things. Sometimes the airbag goes off in her face into her chest. Sometimes our knees are against something and they hit the dash or hit even the door or legs. Get crushed. So really anywhere.

Can be symptomatic and have injuries. Oftentimes people are more noticeable about the most painful area. Oftentimes the neck, not always, but oftentimes the neck. But they may also have jaw problems. They also have headaches. May also have issues with their shoulder, with their arm, with their knees, hips feet.

Really important that we address all these problems, not just the most painful. One this is another reason why. People are more likely to have persistent issues if. They don't all. get addressed. And sometimes our brain or mind can really only focus on a few things at a time. So it really prioritizes the most painful area, but it doesn't mean that's the only area that needs to get worked on.

So pain or stiffness or aches or re reduced range of motion on your head, neck, back, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles. Sh. Elbows wrists. You can get numbness, tingling, headaches. TMJ problems, very common really anywhere in your body. And there's some other common symptoms that are less known about these included things, such as dizziness kind.

of Feeling off. Dis equilibrium, kind of feeling like you're falling. Anxiety, depression. Extremely common after a vehicle collision. Kim talked a little bit about this. As well during the presentation, I'll talk about it a little bit. But extremely common and that needs to be addressed or else again, you're more likely to, if it doesn't get addressed, you're more likely to develop.

Persistent or chronic pain issues.

So, what is the process? What do we do? Well, the good news is there is a process. And the first. Thing we need to do. Is come up. With a diagnosis. After an exam. And taking your history So we gotta figure. Out what's injured. What tissue specifically? How it's impacting your quality of life.

How it's impacting your. Day-to-day routines. And how you are functioning. Just because something's injured doesn't mean you're functioning poorly. And just because there's no pain, doesn't mean there's not functional impairment. I've had a lot of people where they don't have any neck pain, but they can't turn their head.

They're like, this is their range of motion. I ask them to turn their head to the right. They look to the right. And that's how much they can turn their head. Other times people have, like I mentioned earlier, dizziness or balance issues. And we're gonna get into that a little bit. And this is oftentimes they're in the absence of pain may not have pain.

But you have these functional. deficits. So we need to identify those. And oftentimes I'll get patients. That are coming in. And they may have had an injury or an accident, and they're doing rehab. They're doing rehab. But it just doesn't seem to be working. It's not working. For them. And the question we always want to ask is why.

Why isn't this rehab working? And usually it's because the diagnosis is wrong or the treatment approach is. Wrong or you're doing the wrong? rehab. For example. If you're having concussion, like symptoms, headaches. Dizziness. Trouble standing trouble with your balance. I don't care how many. bicep curls you do, or squats or lunges.

You do. That is not going to improve. Unless you do specific rehabilitation exercises. For those issues. Okay. I had, I've had patients in the past where they were getting treated for concussion and the person had them doing shoulder. Presses. They were getting crazy amount of neck pain and dizziness, and the the person had them doing Shoulder presses. It just doesn't make any sense. So we gotta make sure we're doing the right things. In the. Appropriate treatment. Obviously we. Can do various different treatment strategies, depending on what's. injured. And what the problem is. And we need to tailor these approaches differently for.

different people. So we oftentimes, when people aren't getting the appropriate care or they're not doing the right rehab, They're gonna get kind of three steps. forward, two steps back. kinda, you know, improving a lot, but then it kind of regresses quite a lot. One of the. issue is, is that these people aren't typically Being continually re-evaluated. Reevaluation of their progress. And they're not being given new things that need to be more appropriate for them at that period of time. So if we have, for example, Two people let's say they're twins. Okay. And they're both in an accident. They're both in the same car. they have the exact same injuries.

So they're very identical, right? Same injuries. Same problems. Everything's the exact same. For twin one. We might do. One type of therapy. We might do an adjustment, some stretches, a couple different specific exercises. And. Twin two, we may do the.

exact same thing. We see them a week later and twin one is doing amazing. You know, I'm 50% better. I feel amazing. Whatever. You did was great. Twin two. Might come back. And say Whatever you did to me, don't ever do that again. Cuz I feel. terrible.

I'm worse than ever. So the question. is obviously. What's the difference between these people? I'll let you think on that for a second?

Well, the difference is, is obviously that the people are different. Right. And people, different people respond differently. To different therapies to different treatments. This is why we need to continuously monitor. And change our treatment. approach and our rehab. As things move forward. If something I do on day one

Is terrible. And, you know, didn't work for you. Well, I'm probably gonna be doing something different on day two. If what I did was really great and helped you a lot, you know, I may do a similar. Therapy. On day two. If I'm giving you a certain exercise and at first it's quite challenging, but you're finding it quite.

Helpful. But then after three weeks, you're like, it, it's too easy. Now, if. I give you that same exercise and say, keep doing it for another three weeks. It's just wasting your time. We need. To give you something more challenging. So you can. Continue to progress. Rather than staying the same way that you are. So this is why there's a continuous diagnostic treat reevaluate process occurring. to Make sure that you're. Getting the most appropriate care. At that period of time.

There's two main issues. So there's two main things that can occur. With Persistent pain. One is, how our it's called your pain? neuromatrix. Basically how our body interprets injury and pain. And how that can perpetuate into chronic pain.

But I thought. I'd talk more about the postural control system. today, cuz if that is impaired, Then that can also lead to persistent. or chronic pain afterwards. So by addressing these issues, we're able to. More or reduce the likelihood of developing chronic pain. Rather.

than 30 to fifth percent. You know, hopefully bring that down significantly. So here. You. can see in the kind of left hand side. Of this. We have three systems that control our postural control. It is. Our vision, our eyes. They tell us where our head is relative to. Everything around us, our surroundings.

There's your vestibular system or your inner ear. It's kind of like a level, you know, those levels. They have those bubbles as you tilt them, the bubble kind of moves. That's what that vestibular system. Does it tells our body where head is relative to gravity. So gravity's pushing down. I know I'm upright. If I'm like.

This I know I'm tilted cuz my vestibular system. And then there's also our muscle spindles, essentially our body and primarily, our neck. It , tell us where we are in space and allow us to maintain posture. and control. If you look at the the chart here.

As we at the top, that RIN information, that sensory information. From these systems gets transferred into the sensory area in our brain. Okay. And that tells us where we are. That way. We're able to send that. Information over to the. Motor cortex as. We keep going around the circle or to our body.

And it tells us what we need to do. So based on where we are. We know what we need to do. Okay. If you don't know where you are. It's hard to tell you what to do. Your body, what to do in order to get to do what you want it to do. It's kind of like looking. At a GPS, if you want to go to Starbucks, you type in Starbucks in your phone. Right. And it says, turn right and go 300 meters. And then it's on your destination's on the right.

Right. Because it knows exactly where you are. If you're in a different location, then the directions are gonna be different. Now what if your GPS didn't know exactly where you were, what if it knew. you that you were somewhere in the city. Case you're in Edmonton somewhere. Well, it's not gonna be able to tell you how to get to Starbucks. It's gonna say, you know, travel that way for a period of time and you might get there.

So, this is one of the reasons that we can develop persistent problem because a dysfunction or an injury to our postural control system. You know, an injury to our eyes An injury to our vestibular system. Or often than not. An injury to our body. Right. This is gonna affect that sensory information to our brain and it's gonna cause persistent problems.

So what our body does. When this information. Isn't accurate. Is, it causes a lot of muscular tension. A lot of contraction. In order to try to protect. you. Now the problem is, is this can perpetuate the pain problem. So to illustrate this. Sensory information of. Our neck. I want you to understand that the muscles in your hand, there's they're called lumber holes some of the muscles in your hand. They're basically here and they, they, move our fingers around. They do this. For our fingers. There's about 18. Spindles or sensory spindles per gram. Of muscle tissue in our hand, and we know how our hands are. They're able To do a lot of fine motor tasks. write Things with a pen right? we can. write Very nicely or I can't very nicely, but I can write. And we're able to do a lot of great things with our hands Now, I'm gonna get you to guess. Just You can say it out loud if you want, or just in your.

head. How many spindles do you think are in your. neck Right at the base of your neck right at the top. Here, I'll give you a second. There is about 286 spindles. per gram of sensory. essentially sensory information coming from. These muscles. in her neck. That is how proprioceptively dense those tissues are and how important They are for maintaining posture. And, control of our bodies. So you can imagine. that if your Tissues are injured, if your neck is injured. in a vehicle Collision or another type of whiplash scenario. or another type of Injury. how can contribute to a loss of posture, which can cause Kind of dizziness. kind of that dis equilibrium. Caused Persistent pain to perpetuate forward, Extremely important, There's 16 times more neck spin Or more sensory spindles in our necks in the, in the upper area of our neck than in her hands. So We're gonna get you to do a little bit of an activity here. Okay. So I'm gonna get you to touch yourself, not there Come on, Let's keep this PG. I hope that made you laugh. this was better. This is. better joke in person, But Here we are. so I'm gonna get you to take your two fingers okay? And you're gonna touch the. base of your neck. So I'm just gonna turn around here. right here. Right? Where your skull meets your neck. Kind of right. in there. Okay? Not Pressing hard. Not pressing hard, just, gently touching there. okay. You're gonna close your eyes, and then move your eyes back and forth. Up and down. You should be feeling those muscles just gently. kind of flickering a little bit underneath your fingertips. Okay. And The reason this happens is because our, it's a very ingrained. Reflex that we have Our ocu, cervical ocular. reflex, Okay. It means that our neck Is connected to our eyes. So when you look to the right, typically you're going to turn your head to the right So this reflex makes that response a lot faster. If you hear your name off to the side. here, okay? What do you do You quickly rotate your eyes and turn your head? right to See what's going on. You're in a jungle And there's tigers and wines trying to eat you, you hear a noise? you quickly Look. and turn your head Right So that's an ingrained reflex that occurs. now with a tissue, With a any type of injury that injures the neck.

It can actually impair or damage that. reflex, That certificate, ocular reflex. There's a couple different reflexes. That we won't get into, but. That one specifically can be quite impaired, And that's gonna cause a lot of problems because if our neck is injured. it's gonna be relaying Inaccurate. information to our eyes, So. then our eyes are gonna have a very challenging time to stay focused on a. certain object. Now the eyes are interesting because. they move Around inside of another, inside of her head, so her head moves around, but her eyes stay. in one area. That's why. I'm, That's why I'm doing this. my eyes are staying focused. The reason they're able to do that is because of the sensory. information from her neck is transferring that to her eyes and her eyes can adapt quickly. Now, when that reflex is impaired or damaged or injured, The. eyes can't do that anymore. They can't stay focused on an object this is what's gonna cause A lot of dizziness. kind. Maybe not Spinning vertigo. but It can cause kind of like fuzziness or if you've ever gotten car sick in the back of a car, There's things moving. by you and you kind of get a little sick you can't focus on things. loss of balance. These kind of issues can Largely be responsible because of this type of. injury. So I want you to picture for a second that you're on a tightrope and or you're walking a line, you're walking a line. on the sidewalk. You know it, It's not too bad. It's fine. You feel fine Now let's bump and you're able to do it now let's pretend that you're 3000 feet in the air. above this crevice. Like this guy here. right? You're not gonna be feeling fine. You're probably going to be on edge, forget the pun, but you're gonna Be extremely hyper-vigilant, hyper-focused. Nothing really is gonna matter except trying to maintain your posture and balance on this tightrope.

Cuz if you fall, you know, one little misstep And then your toast. So, An usual situation When you're on the rope. you're hypervigilant, but once you get on the solid ground? again, you're back on The ground? You can Relax and your nervous system and your body's going to be able to relax and just kind of calm down again. Now, what happens with a person in a vehicle collision? for some people, they can't relax. They're constantly feeling. Like. this guy on The rope, 3000 feet. in the air. They're constantly on. edge because their postural control system has been impaired in some way, or damaged in some way. So it's fighting really hard all the time to main posture to maintain. balance so They don't fall so they don't injure themselves. You can see how this is going to cause a lot of stiffness, a lot of tightness, A lot of, can contribute to, a lot of anxiety to con can contribute to a lot of persistent pain. If you're always Like this, always wound up, it's gonna cause a lot of problems. So this is one of the issues that we need. to address now, I wanted to give you guys some resources some great resources, you can check. out online.

This is just a website here Canadian chiropractic Guideline Initiative. If you go here. to that website and you go to clinical or clinician patient resources. You can click. on these different conditions And it'll give you a a good summary and overview. of some evidence-based treatments and some exercises and these types of things that you may be. find interesting.

This is also another part of that website. CCGI slash research So if you just, if you even just go into Google and type in Canadian Chiropractic Guideline initiative exercises this'll come up and they have some for the. low back And neck pain and shoulder pain. And I use this Quite often un give to people here's just. an example of if It'll play I can't get it to play. But it, it shows us several different exercises, mobility, stretching, strengthening exercises to help improve these. areas due to any type of injury to those areas. I'll disappointed And won't play. For me, but just take my word for it. They're there and they're grace. So give. those a look. Okay. So there's also some functional tests here that we can get people to do, and I do all the time. I wanted these to play, but they're not. doing it for me. Basic. Okay. I'm just gonna do them. So this is the marching test. Okay. So again, this isn't The absence of pain. This is the really test your postural control and your balances.

So the first one, I'm just gonna demonstrate here. You're gonna be marching, so you're gonna close your eyes, Okay. And then you're gonna be marching, Basically like this, tapping your heels or. your knees to your hands. And you're gonna do that for about 30 seconds. Now sometimes people are just gonna be able to. do that.

No problem. Other times if there's a big problem with your postural control o, oftentimes people will Gradually turn and by the time after 30 seconds you know you're initially facing this way. By the end of it, you're facing this way or even all the way. around. So that just illustrates that there's clearly an issue. there. This is another one So it was called Rombergs. essentially. you're gonna stand with your feet, right together. You can't see my feet, but just know that they're Together

and you stand there with hands on your sides. And you should be able to do that. Nice and easily and you can do it with your eyes closed. as well. And again, that should be no problem. If you can't do that. Then we know there is a problem. One leg standing. So the exact same Thing with eyes open and with eyes, closed, you should be able to hold that with your eyes closed each leg. one at a time for at least 10 to 15 seconds, like easily If you can't do it, there's. a big problem and that. needs to be addressed. Or your risk of developing persistent. pain just goes up.

Okay. There's some other exercises that we'll do or tests. Smooth pursuit, basically. we've all seen this. It's like that. sobriety test. It's not a sobriety test, but tests different things. Brain functions. Essentially. following your fingers like this side to side, you know, The H pattern that they do in the movies. Doing that. You should be able to do that without any problems, back and forth a little faster as well. there's another one, as well where you're looking at an object and. then you're turning your head, Keeping your gaze on that object A lot of time when there's an impairment with these issues with these injuries you can't do that. And doing these tests And doing these tests sometimes will actually. make you feel a little foggy, a little dizzy, uncomfortable. Sometimes it causes pain even it's cause There's. an issue with your eyes and the reflexive. control with your neck. So that needs. to be Addressed and fixed If you are to make a full recovery. So, little story here. I had a patient more recently, actually, very recently. and They were in a vehicle, collision the end of last year. and they were seeing another provider locally. And It's been about four, it was about four months, or so since they had started getting treatment and they're feeling a lot better about 50% better in terms of their pain. But they were frustrated with their lack of progress and rightfully so. Again, a lot of times people think it's not that bad. of an injury. Why. is it taking so long? Right? This I should be fine in a day or two, but they're not? So it gets very Frustrating. And So this person. she started developing Headaches she started developing weakness in her. right arm, right. arm and right leg Actually. And was getting a lot of headaches and neck pain. And she felt better, About 50% better. but still not great. So The person suggested you know, maybe you should see a chiropractor. as well. Maybe they might be able to help you as. Well, so. As I was chatting with the patient. taking your history, doing exam, I asked, them, what, what did your, what'd your, physio say? what was happening? Why'd they say You're still having problems and the response was, well, they say, I'm Really tight. And This is never the reason you're, you're. Never hurting cuz you're tight.

You may be stiff and tight. and it may hurt. But the. re, the. real reason, that you're hurting is not because you're tight. there's a reason you're tight, And that is the reason that you're still hurting and a lot of it has to do with this postural. control problems. Again, if your body's Response to if it doesn't know Where it is, it's postural control is impaired, It's gonna tighten up those muscles. so this is. a classic example too, when people are always tight and always stiff their neck's always stiff and They can get a massage. every single day. And you know, it feels great when they get. it, but then a day or two or a week or so go on. Later go on And they. Just tighten back up It's not because you're tight, it's cause their postural control is impaired and. we're cause it's your body's causing this neurological stiffness or tightness.

So Without addressing that postural control system. thing, it's Just not gonna, it's just not gonna work for you. So back to this person again. her. Name wasn't actually Hailey, this is actually a picture of her, but. just illustrate. So I did an exam with her. and she had some severe, she had pretty good range of motion.

Not terrible, not the greatest, but not terrible. But movement. was painful. she wasn't able to do. certain tests. She wasn't able to hold her neck up very well without pain. A lot of these postural tests. Were not very good. She had very little strength in her, in her hand, in her, in her leg. There was just nothing there she was really concerned about dropping her newborn. baby. and rightfully So you don't want to drop your baby. I have a baby, And that would not be good. so, you know, very concerned, pressing Big problems here. Also with her, she had terrible balance So remember those tests. that we're talking about, the one leg standing Romberg's test, marching. test, And where is. it?

Marching test. She could not do these. She could do it, with her eyes open. but once she closed her eyes, she was falling, over within like A second or two. She couldn't, She couldn't do it. And this isn't Just you know, have 'em do it once and see if they fall Down This is like every single time we probably had her try to stand on one leg. each leg probably like three to five times. And she was getting extremely frustrated, like why can't I do this? and almost like anger, right? It's, it's very frustrating. She, She, didn't know that she. Couldn't stand on one leg. She didn't know her posture. and her balance were severely injured and impaired. So So this was, this was one of. The main reasons that she was continuing to have pain, that she was continuing to have problems and that she was starting to develop headaches and that hurt.

She just wasn't getting better because From what. she said, they weren't Doing anything to really address these problems No one had even pointed them out to her. which was Really sad. I see these problems all the time and they. don't get addressed. So moving to a bit of a different topic. people always ask what's covered under your collision? For your vehicle accident. So a lot of times people don't know that they actually have insurance coverage. after being in the collision. If you've never been hurt before and now you have been hurt, why would you know? And I'm sure you've talked to your what are they called? The adjuster, your insurance? broker on the phone after an injury. or claim. I am sure you've talked to your claim adjuster on the phone And they were Maybe pleasant, maybe not. And typically they say that you. have They kind of go over your coverage, but a lot of time they kind of breeze over it and you know, we miss things on the phone and they say you're able to go see someone for your injuries. If you feel you. need to. The Big problem is that if you feel you need to my opinion is that if You've been in a vehicle collision, you need to go get checked out, even if you're not having any pain because again, pain isn't the biggest issue.

This impairment to your postural control system. Is a big problem. And I've had patients come in 10 20 50 years after an injury, and they come in with the neck pain that comes out, comes out every once in a while, ever since. that car accident because they never fully rehabilitated. themselves afterwards. And this is, this is why it's so important. So what's covered? Here's a Couple websites you can check, it out. Essentially for chiropractic care, I have up to 21 visits within 90 days, Okay. That's plenty of treatment. That's plenty of care for majority of cases. Sometimes that's not. enough. And if it's not enough, and you need more care and you have up to a thousand dollars of coverage. For Up to two years after the collision.

And also If you have any private insurance as well. That kind of gets, goes in there as well. So there's a lot of, lot of coverage for you, if you need it. This is taken From college of Chiropractic association website. Essentially, what Do you do, if you need care, if you need treatment again, you're in an collision You. file a, a report.

You you should go see a primary healthcare provider, chiropractor, physiotherapist. physician. I'm a little biased, towards chiropractors, but. Understandably so, I'm sure. But you need to see someone you need to fill out for appropriate forms. They're gonna, there's a bunch of forms they're gonna fill out.

This is just Some. Stuff that you can take a look through if you're interested. Okay. So to summarize. a lot of times people feel fine after an injury They can live with it. they can live with The pain. It's not that big of a deal, They think but the reality is you don't need to and you shouldn't have to And if you wanna limit your chance of Having persistent. or chronic pain after an injury, well, you need to go check. you need to go get some. help. You need to go see someone to get assessed, appropriately diagnosed, and provide an appropriate treatment plan. This May involve you may not need any hands on care. you might only need A couple different exercises This might. be Pretty straightforward, but. it also might not be. If you want to reduce your chance of developing chronic pain I suggest. you take some steps to to do that And there are professionals that are able to do. that for you. I'm gonna leave you off with. a little story here. This is a patient. of mine.

First I saw her, it was a year or two ago. and She was getting some treatment at a local provider around the city here around town. And she was in a vehicle collision and she was doing actually quite a lot better. So they, they were able to, get her pain down to where there was no. pain unless she decided to do Anything. So if she was just sitting there, bump on a log. not Doing anything. She. actually felt fine, Which is great. A lot of people don't even get that far, but for her. any, If she were, do any house chores, do the laundry, clean the house. go for a run exercise at all, Do any type of Physical or any type of work that required her to move her body. or use her body, she would have pain. And sometimes. that pain would linger for Quite some time But she'd kind of come to terms with it and she was kind of, she's like, okay, this is just gonna be my life now. Their provider suggested getting some orthotics because they thought that might be a little bit of, help as well. so they looked us up and saw that we do orthotics So she came in for some Orthotics. I told her, you know how about we do an exam? and I'll let you know what I think. we can do some orthotics as well, if you like, but would you like another opinion? She was inclined to do. that, so, We did a workup. She had a couple of These issues that we had talked. about earlier, And I told her, you know, I, I don't really think you need orthotics.

They might help your feet feel a little better. but I don't think They're gonna do anything for anything else. Maybe a little bit, but I don't. really think you need them. I'll. sell them to you if you want. I'm more than happy to take your money. if you want Those orthotics And your die die hard on those orthotics.

But I actually think you need a couple of these other things. first, At least to kind of get you a little further down the road. I think we can get you feeling a lot better. Doing these other types of therapies. And she kind of was surprised, I guess and didn't really want she, she wanted to think about it we'll put it that way. and so she didn't, we didn't do treatment on that day. I didn't think she'd come. back, but about a month. or two later she decided to come back and decide to actually start some treatment and. I'm sure she's glad she did. She wrote this little, she asked her to write a note. and she wrote this for me.

I'll just read it here quick. good day. I was asked if you'd write a, if I'd write a little something. that something'll definitely make your life easier. And of course, I said yes. hi there. My name's Patricia Stransky. you and I have never met, we probably have a lot in common when it comes to our health. Things like I was in pain and wasn't. Able to do. much. In my case, it was due to whiplash injury or due to injuries from a car. accident. I couldn't even do simple household chores without pain. I was starting to put on extra weight and The doctor's prescription drugs weren't helping I progressed as far as I could with physiotherapy. Your life may be different of course, yet. You're still facing problems that slow you down, But the reason I'm writing is because I found a solution that might be helpful to you His name is Dr. Joseph Tanti, and. he has been the added support I was looking for. I found him at Caplan Chiropractic Clinic, made a phone call. and they answered my question. So I decided to give them a try. here's what happened next. Dr. Tanti Took the time to fully explain how he could help me. But before offering me a treatment plan, he consulted with my physiotherapist. During that, the plan was right for, sorry, some of this is cut off me. Dr. Shante was not gonna do anything I was uncomfortable with for example, I was not comfortable having my neck cracked, so I used Other methods. to provide relief.

So one month I felt the best I had been since the accident over a year. earlier. Better yet. I'm now completely off the pain pills Dr. Tanti and the folks at Capano Chiropractic treat me very well and have been. an instrument. M instrumental in giving me my life. back. I can do regular household chores without experiencing Excruciating pain and have taken up some of the hobbies. I hadn't been able to do, like gardening. I feel better than ever. And The folks at Caplan Chiropractic Are incredible. I encourage you to call Dr. Tanti as office with any questions you might have. He's knowledgeable, friendly. He won't try to sell You anything you don't need, You can call 'em at as she puts the number and the rest of it's kind of cut off at the, at the down, at the bottom here. Give us. Well, alright. Here it is. Or if you're not ready to talk to. anyone, Dr. Tanti can email you a helpful report to explain what's possible. to relieve your pain. Just Send an email to my friend, Dr. Joe at joetti, dr joe Tanti.com. Thank you for taking time to read this letter for, in this case, listening to me Read it. I hope you give Dr. Joe a try and if You're having any pain. or any problems that you're Dealing with. I hope you give me a try as well. I'm sure we're able to Help you get some relief or at least help you get some answers and point you in the right direction. Like I mentioned earlier, if you have any questions or concerns or anything like that or dealing with Any is any issues, feel free to reach out. I'd love to help You break free from any pain that you may be dealing with Again, I'm apologize. about not being tech savvy apparently. and somehow deleting that vi that film that recording from the actual presentation. But I hope you've found This one. To be at least somewhat helpful in helping you return to being free from pain and recovering fully from your injuries, Feel free to ask any questions? if you have any. All right. And have a fantastic weekend. Thanks.

Find yourself, you swerve, but you do not made the decision to swerve. You're, you just did it. That's that part of the brain in action. Its job is to take care of us. If a lions in our living, then we have what they call the manually in part of the brain, and that's kind of in the middle. We share with all the mammals, and that's where the emotion centers are kind of in the middle.

And then over top of that, we have the neocortex, and that's the newest part of our brain. Um, it's bigger, more comp, more, um, our human brain isn't the biggest brain on the planet. Elephant brains are huge, but we have more folds. If you ever seen the Hollywood jar bring in a jar, all those wrinkles and bolts make more space for neurons, and that's where all the good stuff is.

So right here in this room, most likely. Most of us have this part of the brain online. We took a picture of the m r i, I mean, of the brain through an M R I or something. We'd see this part of the brain lit up. That's our social center. It's higher reasoning, empathy, intuition, higher problem solving. All the good stuff is in the neo cortex.

So

when we have, when somebody's had a shock or, uh, through either car accidents that we're talking about today, I kind of want to generalize a little bit to trauma period. When we've had a shock, what happens is the neocortex kind of goes offline or it can go offline, not for everybody. Um, but if, if it does, as Dr was saying, it affects a lot of the other systems that we have.

Um, let's go back down to this part here. I grew up in BC and BC is bear country. I grew up in the interior of BC and I used to ride horses on onto all these old walking roads and we can tell ourselves, train ourselves, this is what you do in this situation. So in bear country there are certain things you do and don't do, especially when you're on horse.

So I knew exactly what to do if I saw a bear. So one day my family is fishing along the creek and we're all spread out about a kilo down the creek and there's a big rock across the creek and there's all of a sudden this huge head rears up and it was a grizzly. His head was huge. And even though I knew don't run from a bear, I was half a mile down the road before my new per cortex kicked back online again.

So even with all the training. That I've had and spent years and years on course, actually I, my brain, my body just, and brain just took off. So part of the reason why I want to explain that is a lot of people when they do have a trauma and then their brain starts acting differently, they feel like they're losing control.

In some ways they are, because this part's often firing, sometimes this point, sometimes this one, and they can't stop it. One of the questions I ask clients is, uh, if they've had some kind of trauma, they're coming in for whatever reason, they can't even define what they're necessarily coming in for. That happens a lot.

I'll say, how do you sleep? Because not very many people who have had a trauma and are in it sleep very well because the brain is in overprotection mode, right? I've gotta make sure this body survives. So, I'm gonna be vigilant all the time to protect us, so we don't have a lot of control over that. Um, and then I'll ask a bunch of other questions around, I, I want to feel for whether they have a, an adjustment disorder from an accident, or do they have full prolong ptsd?

Um, let check on second. Second. Oh, yes. Um, has anybody heard of the window of tolerance when it comes to trauma? No. Okay. Uh, again, very popular online if you want to Google window of tolerance. So imagine my hand is kind of a window that can open or close and everybody in this room, when they're functioning normally our window is like this, but if we have an accident or a trauma, the window kind of starts to close a little bit if we have a lot of stress in our life.

On top of that, Trump. Up it closes a little bit. If there's other things that have happened in our past that's not resolved, the window can be closed a little bit if it closes too much. And what this means is we can't tolerate regular everyday things anymore. You're talking about physical things that we can't tolerate.

What about the other things? Kids are yelling, I can't handle my kids anymore. Uh, why can't I handle them screaming anymore? I used to be just fine. I can't handle it. I'm angry all the time. And why am I so angry all the time? Why can't I sleep? Why am I having nightmares? Why am I anxious for no reason whatsoever?

Minimum room, nice people, and I just can't help feeling like the shoe's gonna drop somewhere. Right? So when we experience big things, our normal healthy window of tolerance begins to close. And if it, if it starts, if it closes too much, we're gonna go into either height, her arousal. Or hyper arousal. So hyper arousal are the safety things where we feel anxious, angry, out of control.

We want to, we can feel this sense of wanting to run away and our reactions just take over. That's hyper arousal, right? That's down here in this part of the brain. If it, it could go the other way as well. I've met lots of clients like this who used to be able to have great capacity to handle lots of things throughout their life, and all of a sudden they can't do a bit, they just, it's, they're exhausted all the time.

And it says little, their brain and body instead of running wants to collapse. Although all they can do is some sleep or not feel like they can't. I had a client a few years ago who husband said he wanted to divorce. She was shocked. They were kind of trying to work their way through it and then all of a sudden she phone them up one day.

She says, you gotta come and get the kids and can't get up bed. And she spent two days in what they, in, in. There's a theory for this that's explained in the science of polyvagal theory where we have dorsal shut down and it's the brain's way of saying, okay, you've had enough reset. We're shutting down for a while, you're not moving, and it's for healing.

That's the purpose of that program. So we see that with all of that in the therapy office. The part that I really want to get across to people is understanding that this is not a voluntary process. We can't, we can't just will it away. Like if I slice my arm open, I can't just say, okay, you know, let's go away, heal and it's gonna be gone.

And yet people think that's what we're supposed to do around psychology. If something like the brain is the most complex organ in our entire body, it runs everything. And yet, you know, there's a stigma of. It's getting better, but it's still not there. We can miss a little bit. Um, what else do you want to see?

Yes. Uh, so not everybody who, even if, if you look at, uh, combat veterans, only about 20% of of veterans who see like heart horrible combat, end up with ptsd. D 80% don't. And so to water research. And I'm like, why? Why is that? What, what's happening? And so sometimes what's what some of the research is showing is that com trauma and stress can compound.

So if we have, uh, had other stressors in our life and then something like combat comes along, then it is kinda like the straw that brings the camels back and then we end up in full blown ptsd. But most people, With time time's a heal of many things. Um, you know, if our information processing system's working well, we're all born with one, we heal relatively well.

But if we've had a handing effect of a lot of traumas, ie. The window's been closing, then we can't, there's nothing we can do about it without help. We need help. So I'd like to remove the stigma. Go get the help. It's getting better out there. Um, so if somebody has Yeah, yeah.

The type with help psychological health or, or something from a GP is because as I understand it, a lot of the symptoms you were talking about mm-hmm.

Uh, doctors would say is depression. And they would say, here's an s sri, try these and see how it goes.

They, because you Google. Okay. Because the, the issue itself, like if you look at the, uh, there's something called the PCL five. It's a symptom checklist, A screen for ptsd. Yep. Depression's one of the symptoms.

It's a symptom. It's not, uh, PTSDs itself. And I know there's lots of accidents you getting in that don't lead into ptsd, but can still be traumatic if we do end up with ptsd. It's not, it's not a, a mental health issue. It's a nervous system issue. And so it needs to be, uh, the, the trauma itself. People come to me, I wanna help them process what happened.

We have an information processing system in the brain. It can handle a lot of stress. It wouldn't be the dominating species without something. They would say, no, not really, but it wouldn't be the dominating species on the, on the planet if we couldn't handle a lot of stress on Trump. On, but there's is a limit to what we can handle.

And it's like the gears get jammed in there, and then everything stops working. It affects every aspect of our life, but we have methods of therapy that can help process the trauma, whether it's old trauma or new, to get those gears going again, get that system back online again, process it, and then all of a sudden, oh, we're sleeping better.

We're not feeling depression starts to lift, the anxiety starts to come down. And then there's also things that go along with that, uh, to deal with anxiety. Things like breathing, exercise, yoga. There's all kinds of things that we can do for that. But they aren't gonna solve it all by themselves. They're, they're like, you have a path.

There's a path. So what are, if somebody has a trauma from driving, they have an accident, what are some of the common symptoms that you would've imagined? People have pet, maybe some had accidents. No. Constantly checking the rear view mirror to see who's gonna run into me. Yeah. And I know I have no control of that.

Yeah. And not because that's happened to me, but I was the person who did that to someone, and it was a tiny little bump. And I said, let's settle this up. And within two years I got this letter that shared the, the Jesus anatomy, and it accused me of like 10 different things. And I was distracted for a moment reading the sign, but I know, uh, that it, it was a shock to her system.

So what you had to say today, it was like, oh, that's why I was accused of all those things because when I accidentally bumped her, no damage, no visible damage to me, you hit me, you hit me. And I'm terrified of, terrified of when I'm driving. I'm hypervigilant. Mm-hmm. Uh, I have adhd, a generalized anxiety disorder, and I can't always judge the lane I'm turning left into.

I think I'm in the right lane and then down here off, and then I know, oh, you're in the wrong lane, honey. So I move over. Um, so, but it's that my window of tolerance, I think is a people. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And I have history of, right, you know, like childhood, so com complex comp, they call that. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. And we have developmental, they tried to get that in the diagnostic system, but the HMOs didn't like that idea, so they kiboshed it. Uh, there's some more recognition now, but it's not official. Um, yeah. Langs, pardon me. Lang Mars. Yes. Yeah, that's a big one. Being a backseat driver. Uh, being a pa uh, people who've been in car accidents really struggle with being the passenger.

Yeah. And that has to do with not having control. Like some people don't even want to drive. Um, there's, there's four main areas of symptoms within ptsd. So I'll say what they are and then you can kind of think about what areas make sense in a, in an accident. Um, so there's changes in arousal and reactivity.

So that's the hypervigilance piece and sleep that falls in there. Intrusion symptoms. Intrusion symptoms can be nightmares. Um, but what else might be intrusion Symptoms has to do with thoughts. Anymore formalizing thoughts, thinking this is going to happen. I do that. Waiting for the other shooter Yeah. To drop.

Yep. That's how I live. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the what ifs. What if I got hit harder? What if my child was in the car with me? What if it was from the side instead of the back? Those are in big intrusive symptoms, right. Um, intrusive thoughts. Yeah. Um, there's also a avoidant. So what? Avoidance is another big trauma symptom.

So what might that look like in a

car accident?

Like people don't go down that road anymore. They don't go on the highway. They don't like to, they don't like to drive anymore. Yeah. Avoid everything. That was They don't go to the restaurant. They were just leaving.

Exactly. So there's a concept, um, I think Dansk talks about this too, what fires together in the brain, wires together in the brain.

So if two things happen at the same time, um, that's a good example. There's positive ones and negative ones, right? Uh, one would be, yeah, we had an accident right outside the restaurant that we went to never go to that restaurant again. Cuz now that restaurant is associated with the, all the negative feelings from me, from the accident.

A common one is I won't take that highway anymore. I have lots of people who won't drive Highway 21 cuz they.

Yeah, my mom would not turn left and I was, I was so dismissive and discussing with her when we told her left, it's like, it was just one of those things that I have 10. Right. So, but you, what? I have 10. She had that thing because for whatever reason, she, because you have no control over is somebody gonna switch out of that, whatever.

Looks like they're all going that way. And, and then one comes through and bang. Right. So, yeah. So is there a, like opposite of avoidance? Like, is, is there something like you're purposely putting yourself through that again to go down that road or go down the road up where the other parking car came from?

Cause that's, that's my problem. I drive down that road all the time and I just, yeah, I could take a different route, but I, I don't, okay, so chances are what's happening for you is when we've. And it's, and again, it's not a conscious thing that the brain does. It's an unconscious thing when we've had a trauma that our brains will focus, hyper-focus or fixate, or ruminate on whatever it was in a, in an, in an effort to resolve it.

Same as with if judge children. Okay. So, you know, when kids experience something for the first time and it's either exciting, scary or whatever it is, they will take their toys and they will reenact it over and over and we just, why you mean play therapist to kids with trauma? They'll reenact it over and over and over again and it's the brain's way of trying to find resolution.

There is another factor though, in the PTSD checklist that we also check for high risk behavior because not too many of my clients usually answer zero to it. But some people engage in high risk behavior after like speaking. Or so medicating with alcohol or, you know, that kind stuff. Um, but chances are that's what that is.

That's your brain trying to say, we, if we just do it again, one more time, we'll figure this out and then, then we'll feel in control and, and the disruption that you're feeling will go away

is that really negative reinforcement?

Uh, it can be, yeah. So I mean, I, if I was working with you, I'd want to work on that specific thing and probably do the trauma processing around what happened where Right.

You know, and titrate it in small pieces so it's manageable and not flooding. Yeah. And then your brain won't need to do that anymore. Mm-hmm. I mean, especially after the first like couple days, I would almost force myself to replay that, like the moment of impact because, and it just would like, just happened.

Right. So, but now it's more like, okay. Okay. Just driving and like drive? Yeah. Specifically. Yeah. Yeah. I wanna check your question. I'm not sure what I meant, what you meant by

that. Well, I don't think it's actually negative reinforcement, uh, as I thought it is. Uh, ex it's, it's, it's exposing yourself to a stimuli which is, uh, scary or adverse to you.

And you do that because the continued exposure will make you no longer Oh, okay. Fear of that. You're talking

exposure therapy?

Yes. Yeah. Okay.

So like, getting back on the horse that fucked you off. So kids getting back on the horse bar would,

or if few explainers exposed someone to a small spider. Big

explainer.

Okay. So I did have somebody, uh, a couple of years ago who couldn't drive in the area where, and he and he, and it's on his route. It was really out of this wedding night to go that week. So we did exposure therapy, um, and titrated it. Right? Right. So first, for example, let's you, you gradually make it more d more closer to the target.

So his wife drove the car near the area for the first couple of times. Then he drove with his wife in the car, but around the area, but close to, to see it. Yeah. Then he drove with his wife in the car. Cause he always felt calmer when somebody else was in the car, uh, at the site and could stop anytime he wanted.

He had to do it on a Sunday when it was quiet. You, you know, unless you just, you know what I mean? So he just, you build it up. That's exposure therapy. But that's not what you're talking about. You're talking about your brain is ruminating to try to find resolution. And when I do it during, like, on a week, like daily, like cuz I drove, it's from on my way from picking up the kids from school.

Right. I don't react like it's just a normal part. But like now I'm getting emotional about it because, not that I talk about it, but when it happens, it's, it's, it doesn't. It's like I don't have any kind of reaction. It's just calm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But talking about it makes me emotion. Yeah. Yeah.

Brings it back up to the

surface.

Yeah. Well, and so sometimes that can be about, um, like some people will ask me, well, how do you know when something's processed? Well, like, when, when do I know? When I'm done with it? And it's usually when they can talk about it, think about it, bring it up, and they don't feel it anymore because you were alluding to this before.

We have five or more senses and everything that my right hand touches during the day, nos eyes, and the eyes might go straight back. But it basically, everything, the right side of the body experiences, uh, physical sensations gets stored in the left side of the brain and then, and vice versa for the other side.

And then when we dream at night, Usually during REM sleep, that's when the brain does most of its processing. So the two hemisphere share that information through a thick neural neural network called the corpus colum. And then when that happens, the brain will trim away the useless bits of information.

We don't, can you imagine how when your answer be used up on every face, you ever stop in your entire life? If the brain didn't trim some of that stuff away, it's a lot of information. So it trims away a lot, and then it stores in a different part of the brain, usually in the back information that's been processed.

So if someone has a car accident and a month later, I say a month because it have to, a month has to pass for the diagnosis of ptsd. But if a month later they can still smell the gasoline or they can hear the crunch of metal, or they feel the hot coffee that lands on their lap or the, you know, we go through the five senses, then it's not processed.

If we think about it and it takes a little work to recall it, it doesn't come up for us. We don't really feel it when we're thinking about it, then it's processed. That's a simplified version of figuring notice on that. I can think. Not absolute related, but um, EMDR got me through a whole Yeah. How many Dr.

Theories. Yeah. Like that was game changer for, I had a number 11 incident. I couldn't talk about my parents' marriage without weeping hopelessly and now it's, uh, one or right now, but I think it's because I'm remembering that Yeah. Therapist. So, yeah. So there's

p r is a

very good treatment for ps. Yeah. It mimics the information system we already have in our own brain.

Mm-hmm. Uh, to help shift, um, where things get are processed. It's a super dumb down version. I have a little video on my website if you ever wanna see that, but there's lots of videos on online. What is your website? Just my name. I don't even, I don't, I don't do technology and yeah, I don't do a lot of marketing anymore.

Just my name, Google my name. It gets Kimberly Law. Psychological concerns. I have no memory. What law. Thank you. Yeah. Uh, you had your hand up there for a second and someone

No, I was just thinking about, uh, flying like a fly somewhere in a long flight. Mm. And it scares a heck, and I'm short of all those guys, and I would love to get over it rather than take out of that.

Yeah. I tell won't gimme

anymore. I've worked with a few people who, with, who have, uh, it's a phobia and irrational fear of flying, although sometimes it's not irrational to somebody actually had an accident or nearly died in the. Complain. Um, but phobias are fear of things. Right. Sounds like you might have been homophobia

just listening to you now.

Um, I think what happened with me the first time I flew, I was probably 17 by myself and I was flying back from Toronto and back then as a DC three or something like that. Mm-hmm. And we had a storm. Mm-hmm. And, uh, the bathroom of the plane was open and it was going like that because the plane was doing all this.

And I think that I probably never really got over. Right. That's why I'm still

scared. Yeah. And that's just, that's a trauma that gets kind of stuck in there. And should you choose to, you could see somebody like me, or I mean therapist and, and see if you can work on some of that. I'm getting a little better.

Yeah, exposure therapy can help. Mm-hmm. So for flight type exposure, it would be more like, um, be look at plane. Look at a plane, look at a plane taking off. Watch a video of a plane, a plane taking off until your system gets calm again. Then imagine doing it until your, a few times until you get calm again.

It's all about getting back to baseline. Right? That's what exposure is about. Um, and then build up to like, make a plan to build up towards actually flying. If you have a long flight, can you take a short one somewhere, for example? You know, that kind of thing. Yeah. Well, and there's other things that you can do too.

Uh, and I know it's the safest way to travel. I know that. Yeah.

You, yes. And then that's what I mean by irrational. A lot of the things that we experience, we know up here, like we know this part of the brain understands. But the trauma isn't locked in that part of the brain. It's locked in here in the emotional part of the brain.

And they don't always talk to

each other. Yeah. And then the stupid part of me, which is there's locks off. Uh, when I'm survey the internet and I see the headline, may, I can't not see it. I have to open it and read all about complain, crash. Right. Which, so it's kind

of dumb. Well, that's probably similar to this family's experience.

Can see cash. I'm ized and here's now, oh, Kesha Kaha. That could be something along those lines too. We recently, uh, flew to Amsterdam and I tried to get all my affairs in order because when I fly I'm, I'm sure that I'm not gonna make it home. That goes with me. It started the first time we ever flew. Our kids were five years old and now they're 40 something, almost 50.

And we went to Hawaii and left our kids with, with their aunties. And, uh, and that stays with me. So I was amazing, grateful, and thank you, God to come home. But then I was depressed for three days. I was the couch potato. I had no, no zoom. I get up and go. Got up and went. Typo, arousal. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it sucks.

And then covid and then, yeah, I'm the Karen, me, and, and, right. So, well, society's had a lot to do with in the last while, so that's all. Yeah. Clo closing some windows. Therapy. Good health. Like, um, somebody asked me earlier, uh, it came up, you know, who sh who should we talk to? I think a team. Is required for a trauma, the faster it can be dealt with.

The, it, it's like it sinks deeper, kind of like into a wound. The earlier we can deal with it, but we can always deal with it that if you have the right people. Um, so I always work with a group of people. Um, I'm always referring to chiropractors. I'm always referring to a little less to physio. Physio's never been huge.

Doesn't work for me, but I've been an advocate of chiropractics since I spoke camp. Um, but, and other, even, uh, some people find a success with Nuka Chiropractic. Um, with what? Nu It's a different kind. Nuka, you can explain. But or not, or not.

It's a type of technique they use, they assess and treat the neck, uh, to help the whole body.

That's

kind of a, and that's all they to do the whole system. They just focus on. So I, I always, I have, I'm looking at multi-discipline factors when I'm, but you'll be talked about some of the, I, I need to sit down here too. But, um, when I'm doing trauma therapy with people, I always have to do a disclosure in a bit in a way, because if they're in the middle of a legal case, uh, it can, it can affect some of that.

They need to know that what the, where they start with, they may not end up with in their legal process. So they, I need to, I have to talk to people about that. Uh, let's see if there's anything I haven't said. Mm. Uh, did I get all four? Oh, the, the four areas of ptsd, so changes in arousal and reactivity, intrusion symptoms, avoidance and negative changes in mood and cognition.

Um, what that can be where the depression or anxiety comes in, but also where, um, negative thoughts come in. Not always things like suicidal ideation that sometimes scares the, the Jesus outta people when they have those kinds of thoughts, when they've never have them before. They're not uncommon in a trauma process.

Um, but the, um, the, the negative thoughts, the world isn't safe. I don't feel safe. Is this a safe place? Just have to, won't look over what's that distrust and authority like our government or, uh, fda, all those medical reason that, well, it could be part of it, but I think there's a lot of other things going on right now too, as well.

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, any other questions or, no, I'm very interested.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

That was great. Uh, that actually interesting. Uh, I told Kim and Joe, I'm actually really excited just to hear what they have to say. So, uh, here's Joe Maggie, he's, uh, like to talk about earlier. He is a lawyer, uh, down the road, uh, bought a stone throw away from her office actually, and, uh, deals with PI and, uh, car, mostly vehicle collision, uh, cases, right?

So, uh, yes, Jones.

Uh, thank you very much. Thank you for all you for coming today. Um, it is, uh, well, a little bit more about me. Uh, I've been practicing more vehicle acts at Dering Law for about 20 years, and I don't practice anything else. So this is, and I run a boutique one law firm over on hundred first Avenue and about 78th Street, not far from Dr.

Ken's office.

Um,

I wanna try today to try and integrate what they've said with my experience and tell you what it's like to go through the legal system, having run or having to run a motor vehicle accident in your claim. So, uh, something comes in my office or I give them over the phone. Uh, I'll get them into my office and the first thing I look for are science, right.

Signs that are off again, because people are often focused on their main injury, the one that hurts the most. Okay. And they'll be talking about their back, they'll be talking about their hip, they'll be talking about their consciousness, and then don't start doing this right also. So tell me about your job.

Well, I've had this weird jaw sensation for ever since the accident. I don't know what it's, can you put some pressure here and open your mouths wide? What is that? What happens? Well it hurts. How about we get you a steak or an apple or something like that? Oh, I can't do that. You have any idea what that is?

No. Don't have any idea what that is? Well, that's tempo. Joint dysfunction. Well, how do I get that? Well, motor vehicle accident, whether it's a side impact or front impact. Your job can, you guys are one of these or one of these and that affects yours and that's very common injury in a motivat vehicle accident.

If somebody comes in and they are wearing dark glasses or they are, uh, looking down, I will ask them, this light bother you. And they will say, yeah, the light bothers me. Even looking at a computer and stuff, you want to turn this light down? Yeah, I can turn that down. That tells me post-concussion syndrome or concussion.

So the first thing we look at is what the patients or what the clients do not tell you because. That's the function of a really good injury lawyer. Find out what the people are not telling you. They're gonna tell you a number of things, but it's like being a doctor, an investigator. You have to find out things they're really not saying, okay, now absent liability for the accident, or those sorts of things.

Let's say I sign up my client and, uh, I explained my fee agreement and they want to go and have me represent them. I said, okay. I represent them. And what I have to do in the legal process is very well connected with how their treatment goes, uh, how they, uh, reach maximum medical improvement, uh, from their P T S D, from their concussion, from their back injury, from their orthopedic injuries, whatever it is.

Uh, in a lawsuit, in a motor vehicle accident claim, you have up to two years to file a statement of claim. And that is an exception for that. If you're a minor, you have up to two years after the, you turn at. So what happens in that time? I say on my website, I deal with the insurer at the insurer stage, and if I can't deal with the insurer at the insurer stage, I have to go to stage two.

That is the litigation stage. The litigation stage alone, a lot of people are not really, they don't really understand it and they may not be comfortable with it. But I say genuinely, if you have a, you know, an accident that become resolved or an injury that can be resolved within that one year, maybe it's a.

PMG and a and a caption off tissue injury here, something very small, resolve it within a year. Unless of course the insurer says, we're only gonna pay you X. And I think it's live and we're off the litigation, right? So we have to look at, it's the common question, how long is my case going to take? And I have represented people with, uh, deceased people with LAC claims.

I have represented people who are quadriplegia, paraplegia, traumatic brain injury, mild traumatic brain injury, concussion, uh, um, and, um, chronic pain, chronic pain's, a common one. And they're all different. They're all different. And the thing you gotta kind of watch for with especially a chronic pain injury, is, is this something that's gonna be dissolved with treatments, right?

Because. As I think Dr. Tan, uh, had mentioned some of these stage will resolve early, but every once in a while you get one that doesn't matter much. You do, whether you go to the car or the physio, the uh, the treatment center. What it is, it's still there. After two years, after three years, you can't work.

You're constantly medicated. And what are you gonna do with these people? So we, as personal injury lawyers, work closely with the medical profession because without the medical profession, we're not gonna be able to prove our case in order to go to trial. And I say to my clients, what's the number? The number one way to settle your case without going to trial is to shoulder.

You're ready to go to trial. Okay. Now what does that need from a legal statement? We operate by a thick book called The Alberta Rules of Court. And that thick book tells you what the things that you have to do in litigation. Uh, there's family rules in there and there's whatever, but many of it rules, like you have to file a statement of claim and specific time rules, like you have to file an affidavit and specific time rules for examination discovery of question.

That is all those sorts of rules and they take time. So, um,

I need to be able to say, how is it that I'm going to be able to prove my claim to the insurer or the defense lawyer on the other side so that we don't have to go to trial? Because I've seen cases where people don't use experts like this and they want us to, yeah, okay, well let's set up trial. And it's been 10 years since the war vehicle.

In there and they come to me and they says this, should this be happening? Well, have you hired any experts to approve the case? No, he hasn't sent me anywhere. I think you're gonna steam, right? So if I know somebody has a TMJ injury, I gather the clinical records from their previous dentist, then, uh, I send them to, uh, my, uh, TMJ specialist who will then likely diagnose TMJ dysfunction.

They'll go for treatment for the tmj. Uh, it's usually paid for by section B. Always a difficult problem when you have only section B paying for your benefits. If you've got a private benefit plan, great. They always say, great. Use that private benefit plan, because some people say, well, I've done the 21 treatments and I can't pay for anything else.

I'm like, Ugh, they're a problem. So, I know my client has a orthopedic injury or even chronic pain, what am I going to do? Am I just gonna rely on their clinical records and that to the other side and ask if they let me? No, it doesn't work that way. I mean, that would be a very insulting to the insurance company who does very, very good work, very good investive work, investigative work that hires excellent defense lawyers to be able to defend these claims.

Okay, so they're on the other side of this. I'm on this side, please. Right. And I'll tell you, I'm gonna say this again. It makes very much sense. If the insurance company treated you fairly, I would not have a job. And that's the honest truth. Right? And I do, well what I do, um, so. The insurance company's not gonna say, well, I'm gonna send you to this expert to make sure you've got.

No, cuz then they get experts out of it to, and they gotta pay more. Pay more the long run, right? They're gonna say, oh, okay, what does your doctor say? Who says this? Which is that? Um, and it's not to their advantage to be able to get extra evidence. Um, so basically you end up sitting there following your doctor's advice doctor maybe.

And, and doctors don't like to be of MRIs very quickly because they want you to kind of go through a course of physiotherapy, go through a course of chiropractic, and I've seen that where they go through the course of physiotherapy and they think it's a muscular sleep problem, but it just doesn't go away.

And it ends up being a spinal, send 'em off to an orthopedic specialist. They send in for an MRI and they say, look, bulge disc, herniated disc and tear nerve routine. Great. Now I've got those. Great. I can say, here's what's wrong with my Now, the next thing to remember is what happens if there's various hits of damages in a loss?

It depends on what you're claiming. Most people know that jail damages is for pain and suffering. So, uh, uh, Phoenix suffering, you get X amount of dollars. But let's say you have loss of housekeeping because you're only able to take care of your house for a period of time. There's a case called Russell and CCO that says, uh, studying from the case called so and Dean, the Supreme Court candidate that, uh, even if others pitch in to help do the work, it doesn't matter if you actually expend money on doing that work.

It's still either non pecuniary or pecuniary. Pecuniary. Damages are things like lost wages. So there's a plan to a pass loss of income. There could be a claim for a loss of featuring income. Um, so. We look at how we're all, how we're going to be able to prove these damages. Uh, there may be a claim for philosophy, drinking money in capacity.

Okay? I may have somebody who is, uh, 23 years old, gets into an accident, ongoing chronic pain, or may be blood oria or severe brain injury or whatever it might be. Um, I'm gonna a vocational report. That vocational report is gonna rely on the occupational therapist. Whatever take that occupational therapist is gonna rely on the orthopedic specialist have retained.

So it's like building a house. You don't throw all the trades people in the lot and say Go, right? You get the people in there to dig the hole, you get the people in there to hunt the utilities, you get the people to do the framing or the basements and framing and drywall and all that kind of stuff. And that's the way it works.

Same thing with reverse injury case, sorry. So, That orthopedic specialist provides a report and the OT looks at it, and the OTs, uh, does an FCE functional capacity evaluation and actual testing with the person, um, to determine their functional capabilities and restrictions that is built upon the orthopedic report.

Now I'm going to get my, um, probably, I'm going to get my, uh, vocational, vocational expert is going to say, look, the OT said this person only has the physical capability of doing X when before they were doing Y and that translates into a loss of income, but I'm not a loss of income expert. So let's get off the location.

Vocational person then looks at, um, Uh, all kind statistics and studies examines you, gets your, uh, it does various questionnaires, uh, interviews you, um, and comes out with a a, um, it can come out and say, look, because this lady could no longer work doing this, she could only lift a certain amount of capacity, right?

The National Occupational Code says that is a light leather or medium leather, or maybe heavier. I don't know what it's okay, for whatever example. And they will say, her previous job required to be this. Now she's only capable of doing this. That is taken off to an economic specialist. So this is how we deal with experts.

Experts are very important medical experts respectly to us. Because at the end of the day, I'm gonna have to prove my case at trial. And I'll tell you what, at the end of the day, uh, they make me run away and say, yeah, okay, you got me and we know what your case is worth. Gimme an offer. Let's see if you can settle it.

So that's kind of how we work with medical experts. Um, the one medical expert has to give us an opinion. Uh, and I've had, uh, uh, concussion nti, N T B I neuropsychologist, uh, say I've reviewed all the clinical records. Uh, I, your claim is done with the testing. Uh, your client comes in here and we've done an interview based on everything that I've seen here.

Here's the report. And maybe she doesn't have an mti, I M T B I, maybe she does have an mtbi. I, we don't know until I get that report right. There may be a history of just. Uh, psychological assumption, psychological disorder. And they might say, we think it's kind of related to that. We don't think it's something related to a traumatic brain injury or mild traumatic brain injury.

Um, usually I find though, that if there is a, a history of treatment, uh, somebody, these of these had versions had vertical, for example, uh, dizziness, balance problems. I look and I say, okay, something's going on here. You need to see a specialist for that, okay. To get that treated. So listening to your client is one of the most important things you can do.

Relying on your experts is another one of the most important things that you can do. Yes. Do you find that the expert's opinions that you're retaining for your clients, Uh, so they're writing a report and saying, this is the problem. Based on your findings, uh, are those usually pretty coinciding with the expert opinion, uh, from the, uh, insurance perspective as well?

Or are they usually, uh, like are they usually pretty similar or are they sometimes like not even close in the litigation? Yeah. So who, who are we kidding? There are paid advocates. I am not lying. I'm so surprised when I first entered this profession. And you will get one. Or I can, I can name, I can, I can name bad ortho that will always give you a crappy report.

Right. But I can name them because they're always teamed by insurers, companies never retained by plaintiffs. Right. And they're gonna say, nah, you don't have this. No, you don't have that. No. You introduced your deal in six weeks. Nah. You know, it's like, great. Now I've gotta hire an expert to, um, to combat that.

Right. And I know that, for example, and I'm gonna throw some names up there, um, If, um, uh, father is one in Calgary that's traditionally, um, traditionally she's a neuropsychiatrist, uh, traditionally duty guidance. Okay, well, there's also a gentleman in Calgary and Neuropsychiatrist who loves rebutting her reports because he went to school and kind of knows it, right?

And he'll come back with a rebuttal that says, no, she's wrong here. What? No, she interpreted, this is incorrectly. What cause this study, blah, blah. And he'll just destroy her, right? So yes, it happens in litigation all the time. We wanna know who you're attending. It's a Dr. Brady. If it's a Dr. Trump and some of us say, you know what, they're gonna be easily undermine cross-exam the stand.

But do we necessarily want overturn trial if we have to? We've gotta prepare ourselves to. So that's why that's the way where we can settle the cases without having to go to trial. Couldn't the, the ones that you send them to couldn't make me the same way they can interpret, they can be interpreted by the other side as the same way.

But, uh, I can tell you that

all my experts, some of them are also retained by the defense. Um, some of them are not, and their reports make sense. You can draw from their facts. Uh, you can draw from their studies. You can draw from their conclusions and their opinions and they, there's little to undermine there, right? Where I know doctor, uh, another one, uh, the, for example, the person will give you 60 pages, right?

Of very, very expensive. Importa is largely retained by, The, uh, defense talks to all the studies, talks about this, does a complete medical review. Here's his opinion at the end and his conclusion. And you read no if that's this can't follow, right? Because as you're reading it, you're saying, oh, there's gonna be a good report.

And then at the end it's like, why would you say that? It doesn't follow really what you're saying, it follow the facts, right? Um, so yes, in fairness, uh, are the people we retain. We're gonna see plaintiff friendly, we're going to retain well, we're certainly not going to retain people that are defense friendly.

So we know who they are and we try to vote. The defense is the same thing. They know we hire and they try to avoid them, right? Some experts, like, uh, Dr. Keaton for example, hired by both sides, testified in more trials and retired now than all ever probably run everybody respects, right? All sex. Um, well then you should both use them.

They do. Yeah. Yeah. And they do, uh, Dr. Uh, Dr. Keegan has been, like I said, he's testified for plaintiffs and defense. He's well respected by both sides. And he's privately testified in court. Absolutely. And everybody should use it. Mm-hmm. Well, you put it this way, if, if everyone, if there was an expert like that, that exists for every occupation, it would be a pretty fair world.

Yeah. But when we have, uh, doctors that know they're being hired by insurance companies, they're gonna lean, leave their opinion over to the insurance company. Right. Lean their opinion over to the insurance company. That does happen in the litigation.

That includes

W C B. Don't get me started. We don't talk about that.

Don't get me started ucd. It's like, here, go to the molar. Okay, you're done. And I'll go back to work pretty much. Um, so anyway, well, I talked about gathering these experts to prove my case. I do it because before I can get into trial, I have to go to a mediation or at least try and resolve it with the other side.

It's part of the rules of court. Now, I put together a brief and the defendants put together a brief. Uh, we sent that to, uh, the mediator. Uh, the mediator, if you don't know, is an independent person who's trained in resolving disputes and helps the parties try and resolve the claim. Everything said in the mediation is without prejudice, and you can say anything you want.

Nobody can be called as a witness at trial. Everything in that room stays in that room, unlike a question or discovery where. It's a court reporter there and people take, uh, and they take a transcript of it. So that's where the last steps before we go trial. When along the way the civil process goes like this, we file a statement claim, that's the force.

We can resolve it without having to filed a statement of claim. Then we file a statement of claim within the two years. Okay? If somebody is resolving after one or one a half, if I don't wait two years and I get it done and filed, go, because civil litigation assault. So then the defendants have, well, then the plaintiff has to take that statement of claim and serve it on the defendant personally.

So we hire a process server. The process server goes out and finds that sometimes his name on the collision report form, sometimes to hit and run driver. Sometimes we don't know, but sometimes the demographic search will help us locate them. Uh, other times we have to go to court to get an order for sub-service, a substitutional service that goes into the door, or a publication, or even sometimes on Facebook, uh, that will happen.

Uh, after that happens, then we provide that to the insurer who then says, okay, now I've got an affidavit of service that says my guy's been served. And so they hired defense counsel. Defense counsel, uh, has to provide a defense to my claim within, uh, 20 days. We always give them professional courtesy if a little longer, and that's fine.

The defense will always say it's the plaintiff's fault. Uh, the plaintiff did this. My client's, not my insured's not fault or anything. Oh, your, the client didn't mitigate, or your client, you know, it's all the injuries were preexisting, all that kind of stuff. That just throws it right back at the clinic.

At the, at the, at the, what you mean. This is a rear motor vehicle accident, right? Are you kidding? That person is at fault for that. Do you think they're gonna admit liability? No. They won't admit liability. So after that, the process is for us, the plaintiffs, um, within 90 days to provide an affidavit of records.

An affidavit of records is documents that are relevant and material to the claim that things like the clinical records and division four form, that gonna stuff that the other, the defense gets to examine them. They then have 60 days to provide their affidavit of records. Then we schedule an examination for discovery.

What's an examination for discovery? It's now called a question. Um, every province candidate calls it an examination for discovery. Why I changed it, I have no idea. But they get to ask your client about, um, there are injuries. Uh, where are they went for treatment? How long have they resolved? Have they not resolved?

Uh, all the heads of damages passed, house housekeeping, future loss of housekeeping in earning capacity, all that stuff. And so that will take most, most part greater, a greater part of the day. So that now commonly occurs through Zoom. Uh, whereas before it was in person, the lawyer's office. So after this, we have to provide undertakings.

What's an undertaking? An undertaking is a promise by me to get information that it's relevant and material that's out there, but I just don't have right now. For example, they're gonna say, when was the last time you saw Dr. Tanty about your, um, your back? And they'll say, well, I saw Dr. Tanty two weeks ago.

And they'll say, well, my financial records only go up to six months ago, so I'm gonna ask you to undertake. To provide the updated clinical records of probably 10, and I'll say hundred to requests. Okay? So that's an example of those undertakings. It may be, ah, income tax records, it may be, you know, any of that stuff.

Once I get those undertakings, now I take all of those medical undertakings days off to my orthopedic specialist here. I talk about the experts because I expert, uh, uh, if I just send my time to an orthopedic specialist, then he's guys, it doesn't have the, the background information, the clinical records defense sends those off to their orthopedic specialist and their report will beat money every return, right?

So after the question, you get the medicals, send 'em to your oath. And I do that because often the ortho will confirm or, um, rule out various concepts, and I also let her know my plans speak it. That does happen sometimes, right? When you have clients that think their, their injury is worth more, right? A here's the mental evidence, here's what I gotta, I have the burden of proof in this time so my orthopedic specialist can issue an MRI report like that.

So, sends the crime from the mi, gets the report and says, I think there might be something, some microvascular tears in the shoulder or whatever it looks like a slap tear, uh, superior leg, superior leg on an anterior, posterior. There's a special way of determining if exactly it is, and that's by DA injection.

Now I've gotta send my clients for gall injection and boom, I fond out that they've got a slap tear or some other, uh, tear and a fibers, which not really identified before. Like some people look, oh, I don't, my shoulder seems fine except what I raised my arms above my shoulders. That really hurts. That kind of gives you an idea of what that is, right?

Um, so he confirms and rules of the cons. Um, many recommends that I send my client off to a, uh, an OT for a function capacity evaluation based on a functional capacity evaluation. The FCE will say, okay, I would recommend a vocational if that's necessary. I don't get vocational for everybody, right? It just doesn't, I don't just send people to experts to build up a case and try to get money.

It's really what the experts say and it's based on fact. Because if my chiropractor says, you know what? I think there's a certain problem here that could be identified in a different way that a chiropractor can't do. My client goes there and boom, there is, now I've got another injury. So that's how. Uh, lawyers work with various experts, um, to build their client's cases.

And when I say build their client's cases, it's to get them a fair compensation, right? Don't be fooled about the rhetoric from the insurers that say, injury lawyers are making all your insurance premiums on mistakes. I'm not gonna get into total reform, I'm not gonna get into auto accident insurance reform, but they've been at it for 20 years.

Um, and they're still making money hand over fist. So this is the case of you don't, and, and by the way, on that argument, my fees go to the client's settlement, not the insurance company. So that's case. Um, I think that's really the main things that I want to say about how my job and, you know, works with the rules of court, that works with the procedure and works with.

Uh, physicians and other experts to be able to prove a client's case, to be able to say, okay, let's get this person's case result instead of having to do a room trial. Now, when, if not a case that's multi-million dollar case, you bet there might be going traveling, right? So it's a liability issue. Maybe there's gonna be a million in the policy and have to get an SCF 44 involved.

The SCF four is a wider on your own policy that pays for your damages and treatment if the insureds limits are above, uh, or are not above a million. So all these things that come into play. Um, but as far as the experts go, I need to be able to look, examine, and stay from the out outside. Okay. My client's sitting here, she's talking to me.

What am I seeing? She's sitting about this, this, this. Oh, yet. The light behind here? Yes. Okay. PCs, what, what about dizziness? What about balance problems? About this? What about that? Yeah, I've got all that stuff. Okay. So I know the GP could diagnose PCs, but the, uh, only a, uh, neuropsych can diagnose mouse brain.

So I always say, mention all of your symptoms to your doctors. If you don't mention all your new symptoms to your doctors, I can't get you full compensation for all of them. Okay. And, you know, the more important thing is be honest with your physicians. Be honest with your lawyer and all. Always, always listen to your client.

Sometimes I find it it difficult. I have clients, uh, I read their charts and title the records and stuff, and I see things like suicide ideation and suicides and things. And I, it really, it really bothers me. I swear, I, I, I probably talk. One person for a year, I've committing suicide, um, because of the pain, the suffering, whatever they're going through.

Um, and as an injury lawyer, that kind of hurts me because I see this all the time. Right? And I have to listen to my clients and I have to make sure that I'm paying attention to them because for God, forget if I'm not paying attention to my clients, they're gonna say, you know, why didn't I go talk to James h Grimley?

Right? Why didn't they go talk to whoever? So I'll tell you a funny story. Uh, and sometimes people think I'm a counselor. I'm not a counselor, I'm a lawyer. Okay? And so they'll come in and they'll, I want an interview to talk about the case. And I had a lady who was 25 years on W C D only for psychological injury.

She worked in a place where, Uh, that, uh, treated difficult young adults and stuff like that. In any event, one came into her office at the county and held her hostage, and at the first moment she had, she bolted out of her office and went straight across the street, put her put, put herself in her car, and locked the doors and shut.

Okay. Her car became her safe place. Her car was in a safe. So you think she's going to be very easily getting back into her car and driving anymore? No, but you know, she worked for W C D and she's always talking to counselors and psychiatrists and whatever. She's still on W c D now she comes in and see me, right?

And she kind of expects the same amount of be Sorry, listened. I listened, I listened. I listened for like 45 minutes. And good lawyers know how to interview. We know how to. The other facts. We know how to investigate, we know how to cross examine, we know how to do all that kind of stuff. But after the 45 minutes, I said, you know what?

That's something that's really important. Can I ask you? And she goes, I don't think you're listening to me. So that kind of thing does happen. Doesn't happen very often, but, uh, yeah, listen to your planks. And that's how we work with experts. That's a bit of a legal system that goes along into prosecuting the person of the case.

Um, it usually ends up being resolved before mediation. Mediation is mandatory. If not, then you go to trial and trials are long to get into, depending how many witnesses you have to call. Um, couple of weeks, usually 10 days more. She got their doctors, who've got, my doctors who've got maybe, uh, uh, the husband and her wife who's who wasn't injured, but can testify as to the housekeeping or how the, uh, Uh, the, uh, personality or, uh, of the, uh, of the plaintiff has changed, right?

So it's not just kind of collateral witnesses are great because they're kind of, here's the doctor saying, you know, this has really affected this plaintiff's lives. You can't do this. And they said, here's why. Here's this guy. Get the mom in there. Get the dad in there. Get the whoever in there that wasn't in the accident, gets a scene her every day, right?

Doing this. Or, I can't be the dishes. Can you help me? That's the kind of thing anyway, right? So, um, I think my time is up today. I think I said, look, all I wanna say, uh, except for a couple of things, thank you all for coming today. We expected a larger crowd. I brought a whole bunch of gift bags, so there's a bunch of slang in there.

Things like, uh, pins and key chains, uh, golf towel or a, uh, psycho and towel or whatever. And of course, the bags. Um, take two and whatever, whatever. I was hoping we would have a bigger card. I just hand vote. So before you go and, and of course question sir, one thing you didn't mention Yes. Which is important is eight 32% ofs.

Yes. 32% of anything in class peace. Say again? It's 33% of anything Intellectual. Uh, speaking about fees, any lawyer that does lots of this stuff, any lawyer who's experts, any lawyer who's just, you can get lawyers from, I can, I can say a few. They're from Ontario and they come out here and try and run firsthand cases or lawyers that are just beginning and out and they wanna charge 25% to get the case or whatever.

Any lawyer that's worth assault and does loss of this stuff will charge at least 33%. And some are charged with graduated fees, for example, uh, they'll say 33% if I file a statement of claim. Then they'll say 35%, and I go to examinations to discovery your question. Then they'll say, 37% I have to go to mediation.

Then they'll say, 40% of the house go to trial. Now my fees are 32%. And why is that good? For one thing, the other lawyers justify themselves and say, well, you know, I'm doing more work on your case, so that means I should deserve more money. Right? People go, well, yeah, I guess. And what I say is, if I'm doing more work on your case, it's because I'm getting you more money.

More money for you leans what more money for you, more for you? So why should I charge you more money to get more money? Right? Uh, but anywhere aside from that, the top lawyers start the 3%. Usually mine are flat. Uh, not a graduating fee. Yes. What

percentage of cases do you usually settle outside of uh, court?

98. 98. Wow. 97

you said never admit fault or somewhere I read that. I can't remember. Well, that's right in your

policy. Didn't fault.

Well, that's correct. I haven't even understand that small print, so I don't bother, I know I have insurance, but that little fender bender that no fender bend. But anyway, that, that boom on hundred first Avenue.

I got out and I went to her car and I said, I'm so sorry when um, you hit me, you hit me and your husband was like, yeah, yeah, we'll just drive around the corner and we'll exchange our information. And then I went to the side for a, a cop shop and I said, I was in, I was in this collision and I caused that.

I was at fault. And I was told, oh, you should. Say that. And I said, well, clearly I was, I hit her in the rear end. Am I not gonna be at fault? So in a situ, you know? And then so, and I never heard back from her. Okay. And then when I got the letter, within that two years, I phoned my insurance company. Cause I was like, oh my God, I can't remember what the, and the fellow that I talked to said, don't worry about it.

Put it right outta your mind. That's what you've got insurance for. So I don't know what they did. I don't know what they settled that. Mm-hmm. I don't know if we had the same insurance company. I don't know anything.

Uh, they probably resulted before the stage of examination for Stephanie. So what

were it really necessary?

What did I do wrong after admitting fault? Like, well, un recorded it. Two

things. Yeah. Nothing really. But there is a provision of your policy where you're not supposed to admit fault cuz of pre prejudice is an insurer's right to defend. Okay. Do they look at that very seriously? No. I'll tell you, if I was in an accident today, I'd say, sorry, dude, I fucked up.

Right? It's my fault. Okay. And

um, you would do that, you would say that? Yeah, I would. Did you let them in the back end like I did. I mean, it's, I, I, I would say that them to be there, fine. I,

because some people, uh, they get into accidents and smashed into some, and they're clearly, you know, walking around, fall on the ground.

First thing they get on the phone, we stand across the curb, go on the grass, whatever. They're not even talking, but getting the, uh, information from the, uh, from the, uh, defendant, right? The license, registration, that kind of stuff. They're calling the company of the vehicle. Uh, they're calling their wife, they're calling their husband, they're calling whatever.

What should they do? What should they do? What should I do?

Well, sometimes those people are in shock. Yeah. Like they, they're, they've, you know, sometimes they're offline and they're. Their thinking brain isn't on and their protective brain is on. Where's my comfort? I'm calling my wife right now. That's

true.