The number depends on whether you can prove the crash changed your lungs

If you already had silicosis from years around concrete dust and stone cutting, a Durham insurance adjuster is going to latch onto that like a pit bull.

And if you didn't go to Duke Regional, Duke University Hospital, or even urgent care the same day, the insurer's argument is obvious: this wasn't from the crash, this was already your condition.

That doesn't make the claim worthless.

It means the value rises or falls on evidence.

Not vague statements. Actual stuff you can lock down now.

Start with the scene, even if the crash was days ago

If the wreck happened on I-85 near Guess Road, NC 147, Roxboro Street, or one of those messy Durham intersections where everyone swears the light was theirs, get back there if you safely can.

Photograph the roadway, skid marks if they still exist, the traffic control, sight lines, lane layout, debris area, and any business cameras nearby.

Photograph your vehicle from every angle.

Not just the crushed bumper. Get the whole car, the interior, the deployed airbags if any, the steering wheel, the seatbelt marks, and anything loose inside that shows the force of the hit.

If you have bruising across your chest or shoulder from the belt, photograph that too. For somebody with silicosis, chest trauma matters. A crash can aggravate breathing problems, trigger inflammation, or turn a manageable lung condition into a daily struggle. The insurer will try to blur that together unless the timeline is nailed down.

Witnesses disappear fast in Durham

People hang around for ten minutes after a crash and then they're gone.

If you have names, save them now. If all you have is "guy in a red Tacoma" or "woman who worked at the bar near Ninth Street," write that down anyway.

Check your call log, text thread, rideshare history, notes app, and work messages. A bartender usually has odd hours, and witnesses from late-night crashes vanish even faster because half of them were headed home from downtown or over by Brightleaf and don't want follow-up.

Write down exactly what each person saw before memory gets sanded down.

North Carolina cases get ugly when independent witnesses vanish, especially because contributory negligence is such a brutal rule here. If the insurer can pin even a little fault on you, they'll try to kill the whole claim.

Get the crash report, but don't worship it

You need the police report. Durham Police, the sheriff, or the Highway Patrol may have handled it depending on where it happened.

Get it as soon as it's available.

Read it for errors.

Wrong lane? Wrong insurance? Missing witness? Wrong time? Fixing those details early matters because insurers treat the report like gospel when it helps them and "just one officer's opinion" when it doesn't.

The report alone will not prove your breathing got worse.

It just helps anchor the basics.

Dashcam footage is gold, and it gets deleted

Ask for dashcam footage from anyone involved.

Your own car, the other driver's car, a nearby commercial vehicle, even a city or private bus that may have passed through the area. If the crash happened near a grocery loading zone, restaurant row, or a delivery corridor, there may be more cameras than you think.

But here's the problem: video gets overwritten.

Fast.

Store cameras often keep footage for days, not months. Vehicle systems overwrite automatically. If a delivery van or company truck was there, the company may have telematics and video, but it won't sit forever waiting for you.

Your phone records can prove you weren't distracted

If the other side hints you were on your phone, preserve your records before they're harder to pull together.

Save screenshots showing calls, texts, app activity, and timestamps around the crash.

If you were using navigation, save that route history. If you were working a shift before or after, preserve your scheduling app, payroll records, and clock-in data. For a bartender, that can show you were functional before the wreck and then suddenly missing shifts, leaving early, or struggling with coughing and shortness of breath afterward.

That timeline matters more than people realize.

The medical proof is not just "go see a doctor"

For this kind of claim, the insurer wants a gap in treatment so it can say your lungs were already bad and the wreck changed nothing.

You need records that show the before and after.

Save every pulmonology record, prior chest imaging, inhaler history, silica exposure history, and work records showing years around dust without proper protection. Then save every post-crash complaint: chest pain, coughing, shortness of breath, wheezing, fatigue, sleep problems, missed shifts at the bar, trouble carrying kegs, trouble walking from the parking lot.

One list. One timeline. No guesswork.

The key evidence usually looks like this:

• photos of the crash scene, vehicle damage, and visible injuries
• police report and any 911 audio or CAD logs
• names and contact info for witnesses
• dashcam, business surveillance, and nearby traffic video
• phone records and app activity showing what you were doing at the time
• complete pre-crash and post-crash breathing records
• work records showing lost shifts or reduced capacity after the wreck

Don't let the insurer turn "no ER" into "no injury"

Plenty of people don't go straight to the ER.

Adrenaline is real. Pride is real. Money is real. Durham rent is real.

A bartender finishing a late shift or heading home might think it's just soreness, then wake up the next day unable to breathe right. That gap is not fatal by itself.

But if you leave the timeline sloppy, the insurer will say the same cough, same shortness of breath, same lung disease, same everything.

Your job is to prove the change.

Not just that you have silicosis.

That the crash made it worse, when it got worse, how your daily life changed, and what hard evidence still exists before it gets deleted, overwritten, or forgotten.