Fort Myers Catastrophic Injury Lawyer
An injury this serious does not end when the hospital discharges you. It sets the terms for the rest of your life. We can take it from here. Call 833-370-8692 for a free consultation. You pay us nothing unless we win. Our Fort Myers personal injury lawyers have taken these cases across Lee County since 1993.
Catastrophic Injury claims in Fort Myers
The insurer will make an early offer that looks large next to the bills you have seen so far. Meanwhile nobody has costed the surgeries still ahead, the equipment, the changes the house needs, or the work you will never do again. Putting a real number on decades rather than months is our job, and we start the day you call.
Lee County combines I-75 and the big surface roads, several years of rebuild construction carried out at speed, and a great deal of water. Serious injuries go to the trauma center at Lee Memorial, with transfers from the islands and outlying areas adding time to a timeline that matters. The recurring complication here is that the injured person is treated in Lee County and then goes home to another state, which leaves a file reading as a Florida incident and an unrelated course of treatment somewhere else. Joining those halves into one continuous medical picture is administrative rather than clever, and it changes the value of a file more than almost anything else.
Lee County catastrophic injury claims are filed in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit at the Lee County Justice Center. Serious trauma runs to the trauma center at Lee Memorial. The county combines interstate corridors, heavy rebuild construction and a great deal of water.
What to do after a catastrophic injury in Fort Myers
- Do not let anybody settle anything yet. Offers arrive early in these cases and they arrive while nobody knows the outcome. A spinal cord injury has not declared itself at three weeks, an amputation has not been through revision surgery, and a burn has not been through grafting. A release signed now cannot be reopened when the picture becomes clear, and in this practice the gap between the early number and the real one is the widest on this site.
- Keep every receipt, from the first day. Parking at the hospital, the hotel near it, the flights for family, the wheelchair hired, the ramp built, the door widened, the childcare paid for. These add up to a great deal and almost nobody keeps them, because in the first weeks nobody is thinking about a claim. Start a folder or a photo album on a phone and put everything in it.
- Photograph the home before it is adapted. Steps, doorway widths, the bathroom, the height of everything. Once a house is adapted there is no record of what it was, and the cost of adapting it is part of the claim. The same applies to a vehicle: photograph it before it is replaced.
- Write down what a normal day used to be. What they did for work, what they did on a Saturday, who they cared for, what they had planned. It sounds sentimental and it is evidence: the loss in these cases is measured against a life, and the detail of that life is only available from the people who lived it. Write it down early, because it gets harder to remember accurately as the new normal takes over.
- Get the treating team talking to one another. A catastrophic injury is usually managed by several specialists who do not speak to each other, and the claim needs one coherent picture rather than five partial ones. Somebody has to gather it. That is work a firm does, and starting it early is what makes a life care plan credible later.
Where catastrophic injuries happen in Fort Myers
Southwest Florida has been building continuously for several years, and the causes here reflect that as much as the roads do.
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I-75 and the big surface roads
Long high-speed stretches with heavy vehicle traffic.
- I-75, where closing speeds decide the outcome
- Colonial Boulevard, US 41 and the roads feeding them
- Heavy vehicles serving a construction economy
- Motorcycle riders and pedestrians on roads built for volume
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Rebuild construction
Years of building at speed, by a labor market stretched past its limit.
- Falls from height, which is the recurring catastrophic event on site
- Crush injuries from machinery and unsecured loads
- Electrocution and arc flash during rebuild work
- Contractors and subcontractors whose paperwork is recent and therefore useful
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Trauma care at Lee Memorial
The serious injuries in this county go to one place, and its records fix the timeline.
- A first-hours record documenting severity
- Transfers from the islands and outlying areas, which add time to the timeline
- Records on a retention schedule, so early requests matter
- A treating team that has to be assembled into one picture
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The water
The river, the canals and the Gulf, in a county built around them.
- Propeller and crush injuries around vessels
- Near-drowning causing lasting oxygen deprivation injury
- Falls from docks, seawalls and lifts, much of it recently rebuilt
- Vessel owners, operators and liveries as separate defendants
What causes them
- Machinery and equipment failures at work and on industrial premises
- Electrocution and arc flash injuries
- Fires, explosions and scalding, including from propane and gas equipment
- Being struck by falling material or a load that was not secured
- Crush injuries between vehicles, machinery or loads
- Near-drowning and other oxygen deprivation events
The injuries this practice exists for
Injuries that end a specific working life
A hand injury to a tradesperson, a back injury to a nurse, a shoulder to somebody who drives for a living. Not catastrophic by a general measure and catastrophic to that person, and the earning capacity analysis is where that gets proved rather than asserted.
Spinal cord injury
The level of the injury decides almost everything about the rest of a life: what movement remains, whether breathing is independent, what equipment is needed and how much care. Those are medical questions with documented answers, and the value of the case follows them rather than the other way round.
What people underestimate is the equipment and the replacement cycle. A power chair, a hoist, an adapted vehicle and a modified bathroom all wear out and are bought again, and a life care plan prices every cycle across a lifetime.
Amputation and limb loss
Prosthetics are replaced every few years, cost more with each generation of technology, and are not the whole of it. Phantom pain, skin breakdown at the socket, the load transferred to the remaining limb and the revision surgeries that follow are all part of what is being valued.
What Florida law requires you to prove
The deadline and the share of the blame
Most claims from an incident on or after March 24, 2023 carry two years under Fla. Stat. § 95.11. Fault is divided under Fla. Stat. § 768.81, and since 2023 somebody found more than half responsible recovers nothing at all. In a case worth this much, a few percentage points of blame is worth a great deal of money, which is why liability is fought as hard as damages.
Finding enough coverage to matter
The defining problem in this practice is not proving the case, it is finding policies large enough to pay it. That means every possible defendant, every layer of excess coverage, and the underinsured motorist coverage on the injured person’s own side. The detail sits on our Florida catastrophic injury page.
The full statutory detail, and the parts that differ by claim type, sit on our statewide catastrophic injury page rather than being restated in every market.
How we prove it in Lee County
The rebuild is an evidential advantage here, and the out-of-state family is the recurring complication.
- The trauma record from the first hours at Lee Memorial
- Permit and inspection history where recent construction is involved
- Every possible defendant identified, including employers, contractors and manufacturers
- A written coverage disclosure from each, including excess layers
- Underinsured motorist coverage on your own side
- Photographs of the home and vehicle before either is adapted
- Every receipt from day one, including travel and accommodation for family arriving
- The treating specialists gathered into a single picture, including any continuing out of state
Where treatment continues in another state, join it to the Florida record deliberately. A file that reads as a Florida injury and an unrelated course of treatment somewhere else is worth a fraction of one that reads as a single injury.
Who would handle your case
Being hurt in Fort Myers is hard enough without working out the legal side on your own. The trial lawyers below have handled catastrophic injury claims across Florida since 1993, and one of them will take yours from the first call to the last check. They will tell you what your case is worth and why, and they will be straight with you about the parts that are hard.
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Richard P. Pravato Founding & Managing Attorney Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by The Florida Bar since 2004, and by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Injury cases exclusively since 1996. Full profile → -
Brett J. Yonon Senior Trial Attorney Selected to Florida Super Lawyers in 2024 and 2025. Nearly two decades in Florida courts, including a $3.5 million funeral home negligence verdict. Full profile →
What the insurer does in a catastrophic case
A catastrophic claim is handled differently from the first day, because the carrier knows what it is worth before you do.
- A fast offer, before the outcome is known
- The most common move in this practice and the most expensive to accept. The offer is priced on what is known at three weeks, and what decides the value is known at two years. Nothing about waiting damages a claim, and a release signed early cannot be reopened.
- A share of the blame, argued hard
- Since 2023 a finding above fifty percent ends a claim entirely, so in a case worth millions the fight over a few percentage points is worth fighting properly. It is answered with reconstruction, with records and with the physical evidence rather than with argument.
- The plaintiff has a prior condition
- Florida law takes a person as they are found. A pre-existing condition that was stable and is now not is an aggravation, and an aggravation is compensable. It is proved with the prior records, which is one reason those get gathered early rather than avoided.
What a claim can include
Pain, suffering and loss of ordinary life
The part with no invoice, and the part an early offer prices at a fraction of what it is.
Scarring and disfigurement
A separate head of loss in Florida rather than something folded into pain and suffering.
A life care plan, which is usually the largest number
Every item of care, therapy, medication, equipment, adaptation and support across a lifetime, costed by a professional working from the treating doctors and brought to a present figure by an economist.
Why Wolf & Pravato in Fort Myers
A Lee County catastrophic injury claim is filed in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit at the Lee County Justice Center, and the firm has an office on Colonial Boulevard rather than a referral arrangement with somebody here. Where the treating team is here and the family is not, gathering the medical picture into something coherent is exactly the work this office does.
Richard Pravato is one of 861 lawyers Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Civil Trial law, out of a membership over 109,000. The certification is about trial experience rather than advertising spend, and it is the part of a firm’s record that an insurance company checks.
Nothing is charged for the first conversation and nothing is charged at all unless there is a recovery. If we do not think you have a claim, we would rather tell you now than a year from now.
Fort Myers catastrophic injury questions
He was hurt here but he is being treated at home now.
That is common and it needs handling deliberately. The claim is built on one continuous medical picture, and two halves in two states will otherwise be argued as an unrelated Florida incident and an unrelated course of treatment. Joining them properly is administrative rather than clever, and it changes the value of the file more than almost anything else.
It happened on a construction site. Can we do anything beyond workers compensation?
Frequently yes. Workers compensation covers the employer, and a serious construction injury usually involves other parties: a general contractor, other subcontractors, an equipment owner, a property owner or a manufacturer. A claim against any of those is separate from the compensation case and is not limited the way it is. Recent rebuild work also leaves an unusually good paper trail.
The insurance policy is too small to cover this. Is that the end?
It is the beginning of the search rather than the end. Umbrella and excess layers, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage across household vehicles, commercial policies, and additional responsible parties can all add coverage. In some circumstances an insurer that mishandles a claim exposes itself beyond the policy limit.
How long do these cases take?
Longer than smaller cases, and for a reason worth accepting. The claim cannot be properly valued until the medical picture stabilizes enough for a life care plan to be credible. Settling before that point is the single most expensive mistake available in a catastrophic case.
The questions that come up on every kind of claim, deadlines, fees, recorded statements and fault, are answered on our Florida injury claim FAQ.
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Tell us what happened
A lawyer will listen, tell you what Florida law does with those facts, and be straight with you about whether it is worth bringing. We are at 1825 Colonial Blvd, Fort Myers, FL 33907.