Where is the acl
Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) Injuries
hi I'm Tim Williams at Dwyer Williams
spotter injury accident attorneys I'm
the lead litigation attorney for our
firm one of the more common knee
injuries is an ACL injury let's look at
the model to understand what that is
let's take a look at the model this is a
right knee model this is the kneecap
here these two bones the lower leg and
this is the thigh bone up here you see
the knee bends backwards like we all
know it does when we walk now underneath
the decap and move it out of the way we
can see the ACL or the anterior cruciate
ligament the purpose of the ACL is to
keep the knee stable to keep it from
twisting or to keep it from bending one
way or another this this unfortunately
is the easiest to injure of all the
ligaments in the knee because it is
located directly in the middle and any
twisting injury or forceful injury from
one side or the other or in particular
any twisting injury with a forceful
injury to one side of the other such as
a ski accident you see that car
accidents usually in Falls that can
actually partially terror fully tear
that that ACL so when the ACL is torn it
can be a partial tear or a full tear
partial tears be honest generally aren't
operated on the doctors will send you a
physical therapy they'll strengthen the
muscles surrounding the ACL to
compensate for the tears there's less
stress put on the ACL but ultimately
because it's it heals so poorly if they
can avoid surgery they're going to do
that but if it's a full tear
unfortunately particularly younger folks
you will need a surgery and rather than
simply sew it back together they
actually have to donate to harvest a
portion tendon from elsewhere it usually
it's it's in the Achilles and they move
it up and then graph that where the ACL
used to be and allowed that to heal and
that'll be the reconstruction never as
good as a knee without an ACL injury but
it's the best they can do with current
technology so what happens in is an
insurance company they look at an ACL
tear and they either argue well it maybe
it was there before particularly if a
person played college sports or maybe
even softball with City League or
something or maybe it's age-related or
maybe they don't need surgery when they
actually had
the surgeries that I want to pay for it
so these are all common lines of
argument we hear from insurance
companies and that's why it's important
to have a lawyer at your side who knows
the law knows what the insurance
companies liable for and holds them to
their responsibilities
