You Got the Call About Andrews Highway. Here Is What Happens Next.
If you are reading this at 2 a.m. from a hospital waiting room or a kitchen table in Midland, you already know the part that matters most: someone you love was in a head-on collision on Andrews Highway, and the fire department had to cut them out of the vehicle. The words “pinned in the vehicle” are the words that change everything — because they mean the forces inside that passenger compartment were severe enough to trap a human being inside twisted metal, and that the injuries are not the kind that heal in a weekend.
You do not need a legal article right now. You need someone to tell you the truth about what you are in, what the other side is already doing, and what to do in the next 72 hours so the evidence does not disappear before anyone asks for it. That is what this page is. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — and we handle car accident and commercial-vehicle crash cases across Texas, including the Permian Basin corridor that runs through Midland and up Andrews Highway toward the oilfields. The call is free. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 any hour, and a live person — not an answering service — picks up.
Here is the first thing to understand about a head-on collision on Andrews Highway: the road itself tells part of the story. Andrews Highway — State Highway 176 — is one of the busiest corridors in Midland County, running north from the city toward Andrews and the heart of the Permian Basin oilfields. It carries commuter traffic, school buses, and families alongside a constant stream of oilfield trucks: water haulers, frac sand transporters, crude-oil tankers, pump trucks, and wireline trucks running to and from well sites. The Permian Basin oilfield truck traffic on this corridor is not incidental — it is the economic engine of the region, and it is the reason Andrews Highway sees the kind of high-energy crashes that pin people inside their vehicles.
A head-on collision is the single most dangerous crash configuration a human body can survive. When two vehicles meet front-to-front, the closing speed is the sum of both vehicles’ speeds — two cars each doing 60 mph create an effective 120 mph impact. The kinetic energy, which scales with the square of speed, is catastrophic. And when the impact is severe enough to pin someone inside, it means the vehicle’s crash structure — the crumple zones, the safety cage, the airbags — was overwhelmed. The passenger compartment was compromised. The fire crews who responded had to use hydraulic extraction tools to peel back what the crash folded in.
That is where your case begins — not with a legal theory, but with a human being trapped in a vehicle on a highway that thousands of oilfield trucks use every day. The question is what caused the other vehicle to cross into your loved one’s lane, and whether the evidence that answers that question will still exist by the time someone goes looking for it.
What Texas Law Says After a Head-On Collision
Texas is a fault-based state for motor-vehicle collisions — meaning the person who caused the crash is legally responsible for the harm that follows, and the injured person has the right to file a lawsuit to recover it. There is no “no-fault” system in Texas. You do not have to go through your own insurance first. You go after the at-fault driver and their insurance company directly.
Texas also follows a modified comparative negligence rule. The practical translation: if the other driver crossed the center line on Andrews Highway and hit your loved one head-on, that driver is at fault. If the insurance company tries to argue your loved one was partly at fault — maybe they were speeding, maybe they could have swerved — Texas law says your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, but you are barred from recovering anything only if you are 51% or more at fault. In a head-on collision where the other vehicle crossed into your lane, the at-fault driver is almost always carrying the overwhelming share of responsibility. But the adjuster will still try to pin percentage points on your loved one, because every point is money off the settlement.
Under Texas law, a person must bring suit for personal injury not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues — which, for a motor-vehicle collision, is almost always the date of the crash itself.
That two-year deadline is the outer wall. Miss it and the case is gone — no matter how strong the evidence, no matter how serious the injuries. But the real deadline is not two years. The real deadline is measured in weeks and days, because the evidence that proves what happened on Andrews Highway is already dying.
There is no cap on non-economic damages (pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of companionship) in an ordinary motor-vehicle negligence case in Texas. The caps that exist in Texas law apply to medical malpractice and certain claims against governmental entities — not to a head-on collision caused by a driver who crossed the center line. This matters because a catastrophic injury from being pinned in a vehicle — the brain trauma, the spinal damage, the crush injuries, the months of rehabilitation — carries a human cost that has no statutory ceiling. The jury decides what that is worth.
Who Is Responsible When Someone Crosses the Center Line on Andrews Highway
In a head-on collision, the liability question usually comes down to one fact: who was on the wrong side of the road. On Andrews Highway, that question has several possible answers, and each one opens a different door to a different defendant with a different insurance policy behind them.
The Passenger-Vehicle Driver
If the at-fault driver was an ordinary commuter — someone distracted by a phone, someone who fell asleep at the wheel after a long shift, someone impaired — the claim runs against that driver and their personal auto insurance. Texas requires every driver to carry minimum liability coverage of 30/60/25: $30,000 per person for bodily injury, $60,000 per accident if multiple people are hurt, and $25,000 for property damage. One night in a trauma ICU can blow through that $30,000 before the sun comes up. If the at-fault driver carried only the minimum, the real money may come from your loved one’s own uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage — a claim against their own policy that Texas insurers are required to offer and that many people carry without realizing it is the financial backstop for exactly this situation.
The Oilfield Commercial Driver
Andrews Highway is an oilfield corridor. If the vehicle that crossed the center line was a commercial truck — a water hauler, a sand truck, a crude tanker, a pump truck running to a well site — the case changes fundamentally. Commercial vehicles are subject to federal motor-carrier safety regulations under 49 CFR Parts 382, 383, 387, 390–399. A for-hire interstate carrier hauling non-hazardous property in a vehicle with a GVWR of 10,001+ lbs is federally required to carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage — and hazmat haulers must carry $1 million or $5 million depending on the cargo. That is twenty-five times the Texas personal-policy minimum, and the coverage tower above that federal floor can run into the millions.
A commercial truck on Andrews Highway is also subject to hours-of-service rules that limit how long a driver can be behind the wheel without rest. If the driver who crossed the center line was fatigued — if he had been running too many hours, if his logs showed violations, if the carrier pressured him to meet an oilfield delivery deadline — the company that employed him, the carrier that leased the truck, and potentially the oil company that hired the hauler can all be brought into the case. The carrier cannot hide behind “independent contractor” labels: federal leasing regulations at 49 CFR § 376.12 give the authorized carrier exclusive possession and control of the equipment during the lease, making the carrier responsible for the truck on the road.
The Impaired or Fatigued Driver
Midland’s economy runs on shift work. Oilfield operations run 24 hours a day, and the roads fill with workers heading home after 12-hour or 14-hour shifts — sometimes longer. A driver who falls asleep at the wheel on Andrews Highway after a long rig shift and drifts into oncoming traffic is not an accident; it is a foreseeable consequence of a workforce running on exhaustion. If impairment is involved — alcohol, prescription medication, illegal substances — the at-fault driver’s conduct may cross from ordinary negligence into gross negligence, which opens the door to punitive damages under Texas law.
The Employer
If the at-fault driver was on the job — making a delivery, driving for a company, running an oilfield route — the employer can be held responsible under the doctrine of respondeat superior (the employer is liable for an employee’s negligence committed within the scope of employment). But the employer’s insurance and the employer’s own negligence in hiring, training, supervising, or retaining that driver are separate claims that can reach deeper pockets than the driver’s personal policy. A company that put a driver with a bad record behind the wheel of a vehicle on Andrews Highway may be directly liable for its own choice, not just vicariously liable for the driver’s conduct.
The Evidence Clock: What Proves Your Case and How Fast It Dies
This is the section that matters most in the first 72 hours. Every piece of evidence that proves what happened on Andrews Highway is on a clock, and the clock is shorter than most people think.
The Vehicle’s Event Data Recorder (Black Box)
Almost every modern passenger vehicle carries an Event Data Recorder (EDR) — what most people call the “black box.” Federal regulations at 49 CFR Part 563 standardize what these devices capture: vehicle speed in the seconds before impact, brake application, throttle position, seatbelt status, steering input, and the change in velocity (delta-V) at the moment of collision. In a head-on crash where airbags deployed, federal law requires the EDR data to be locked so it cannot be overwritten. But if the airbags did not deploy — and in some crash configurations they do not — the data sits in a volatile buffer that can be erased the next time the vehicle is driven or even the next time the ignition cycles.
The vehicle that was struck — your loved one’s vehicle — contains EDR data that independently corroborates their speed, whether they braked, and the severity of the impact. The at-fault vehicle’s EDR may show the same. But neither vehicle’s data survives if the vehicle is repaired, sold for salvage, or crushed. A totaled vehicle can be sent to a salvage yard and crushed within days of the crash. The single most important early step in any head-on collision case is sending a preservation letter — a formal demand that the vehicle and all its data be preserved — before anyone touches it.
Dashcam and Surveillance Footage
If either vehicle had a dashcam, the footage is the most direct evidence of how the crash happened. But dashcam systems typically record on a rolling loop — the footage overwrites itself within days or weeks unless someone manually saves it. The same is true for any business security cameras along Andrews Highway that may have captured the collision or the moments leading up to it. A gas station, a truck stop, a business parking lot — any of these could have footage showing the at-fault vehicle crossing the center line. That footage dies on the camera’s own retention cycle, which is usually measured in weeks, not years.
The Police Crash Report
Texas law requires a crash report (the CR-3, formerly the ST-2) for any collision involving injury, death, or property damage exceeding $1,000. The Midland Police Department or the Texas Department of Public Safety (if they responded on the highway) will prepare this report, but it is not available immediately. It can take 10 to 14 days — sometimes longer — for the report to be processed and available through the Texas Peace Officer’s Accident Report system. The report will include the investigating officer’s assessment of factors contributing to the crash, diagrams of the scene, and witness information. But the report is the officer’s summary, not the raw evidence — and it can contain errors that the insurance company will seize on.
The Truck’s Hours-of-Service Logs (If a Commercial Vehicle Was Involved)
If the at-fault vehicle was a commercial truck, federal law at 49 CFR § 395.8(k) only requires the carrier to keep the driver’s records of duty status — the electronic logs that show how many hours the driver had been behind the wheel — for six months. After that, the carrier is legally permitted to destroy them. The logs that prove the driver was fatigued, was running past his hours, was pressured to make a delivery on time — those records have a six-month expiration date. The preservation letter that freezes those logs has to go out within weeks, not months.
The Truck’s Engine Computer (ECM) Data
A commercial truck’s Engine Control Module captures hard-brake events, last-stop data, speed, RPM, and throttle position — similar to a passenger vehicle’s EDR but with its own retention characteristics. The ECM’s hard-brake and last-stop event data sits in a small buffer that can be overwritten by the next hard event or by continued driving. If the carrier puts the truck back on the road after the crash — and they often do, within days — that data is gone.
Scene Evidence
Skid marks, gouge marks in the pavement, debris fields, fluid spills, and the final resting positions of both vehicles are physical evidence that a reconstruction expert can use to determine speeds, angles, and point of impact. But scene evidence is the most fragile of all. Skid marks fade. Gouge marks get paved over. Debris is cleared. The scene is cleaned up and traffic resumes — sometimes within hours of the crash. The only way to preserve scene evidence is to get a reconstruction team out to photograph, measure, and document before the highway returns to normal. That work can be done, but it has to be initiated fast.
What Being Pinned in a Vehicle Actually Does to the Human Body
When the fire department has to extract someone from a vehicle, it means the crash forces exceeded the vehicle’s structural limits. The passenger compartment — the safety cage that is supposed to protect the occupants — was breached. The steering column, the dashboard, the roof, the floorboard, or the door structure intruded into the space where a person was sitting, and that person was trapped.
Being pinned is not just a matter of being stuck. It is a medical event with its own timeline and its own cascade of injuries that unfold over hours and days. Understanding what happens inside the body is how you prove what the case is worth — because the insurance company will try to minimize every injury that does not show up on a single X-ray.
The Crush Injury
When a body part is pinned between crushing metal and another surface — the dash against the legs, the door against the hip, the roof against the head — the muscle and tissue beneath the skin are under sustained compressive force. The blood supply to that tissue is cut off. The muscle cells begin to die. As they die, they release their contents into the bloodstream: potassium, myoglobin, creatine kinase — a cocktail of proteins and electrolytes that the kidneys were never designed to process. This is rhabdomyolysis, and it can begin in less than an hour of compression.
The danger does not end when the fire crews free the person. The moment the compression is released, all of the accumulated potassium and myoglobin floods the circulation at once — a phenomenon doctors call reperfusion injury. The potassium can stop the heart. The myoglobin can clog and destroy the kidneys, causing acute kidney failure. This is why paramedics are trained to start IV fluids before the extrication is complete — to dilute the toxic flood before it reaches the heart and kidneys.
Compartment Syndrome and the Six-Hour Window
When a limb is crushed, the swelling inside the muscle’s fascial sheath — the tough, non-stretchy envelope that surrounds each muscle group — can rise until it strangles the muscle’s own blood supply from within. This is acute compartment syndrome, and it is a surgical emergency. The pressure has to be released — by a fasciotomy, a surgical incision that opens the fascial sheath — and the window to do it is approximately six hours. Inside that window, limb function can recover almost completely. Past it, the muscle dies, the nerve dies, and the limb may be lost.
The warning signs come early: pain wildly out of proportion to the visible injury, pain that explodes when the toes or fingers are moved. The signs people wait for — a missing pulse, a numb foot — are the late ones, the ones that mean the limb is already dying. If the medical record shows hours of escalating pain complaints before a surgeon was called, that gap is not just a medical problem. It is evidence.
Brain and Spinal Injuries
A head-on collision produces the most violent deceleration forces a vehicle occupant can experience. Even if the head does not strike anything visible, the brain — which floats in fluid inside the skull — slams against the inside of the cranium. This is how a traumatic brain injury (TBI) happens without a visible head wound. A “mild” TBI — what used to be called a concussion — can come with a perfectly normal CT scan. More than a third of people who score a 13 on the Glasgow Coma Scale (the top of the “mild” range) still have life-threatening bleeding inside the skull. And at least one in seven people with a “mild” brain injury never fully recovers — the headaches, the memory gaps, the personality changes, the inability to concentrate become permanent.
Brain injuries from a head-on collision are the injuries insurers fight hardest to dispute — because the damage is invisible. The defense will point to a clean scan, to “no loss of consciousness” in the ER record, to the fact that the person “looks fine.” The medical literature says the opposite: a normal CT is exactly what is expected in this kind of injury, because the damage is microscopic tearing of nerve fibers that a standard scan was never built to see.
The same deceleration forces that injure the brain can fracture or dislocate the spine. A spinal cord injury — even an incomplete one where some function remains — carries lifetime costs that run into the millions. The national spinal cord injury registry puts the first year of care for a high-neck paralysis at over $1.4 million, with lifetime costs for a young adult exceeding $6 million. Those figures do not include a single lost paycheck.
Internal Organ Injury
Blunt force from a head-on collision — the steering wheel, the dashboard, the seatbelt itself — can rupture the spleen, lacerate the liver, tear the bowel, or cause internal bleeding that is not immediately apparent. A person who was pinned and extracted may be talking and alert in the first minutes and bleeding internally at the same time. This is why trauma protocols require imaging of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis — and why the failure to do a full workup can be its own medical-legal issue.
The Extraction Injuries
The extraction itself can cause additional injuries — fractures worsened by the movement of extraction tools, cuts from broken glass and metal, burns from tools that generate heat. These are not separate from the crash; they are the foreseeable downstream of the crash forces that trapped the person in the first place.
The Money: Insurance Coverage and What Your Case Is Worth
The first question every family asks is: what is this case worth. The honest answer is that it depends on the facts — the injuries, the medical bills, the lost income, the long-term prognosis, and the available insurance coverage. But the structure of how the money works in Texas is knowable, and understanding it is how you keep the insurance company from setting the number before you even know what your loved one’s care will cost.
The Texas Minimum: 30/60/25
Texas requires every driver to carry liability insurance at minimum levels: $30,000 per injured person, $60,000 per accident (if two or more people are hurt), and $25,000 for property damage. In a serious head-on collision where someone was pinned and extracted, $30,000 is a fraction of the real cost. A single night in a trauma ICU can run well past $30,000. A helicopter flight to a trauma center — if one was needed — can add $30,000 to $50,000 on its own. Surgery, imaging, hospitalization, rehabilitation, lost wages: the $30,000 minimum is exhausted before the patient leaves the hospital.
Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage
Texas insurers are required to offer UM/UIM coverage, and most policies include it unless the insured specifically rejected it in writing. If the at-fault driver carried only the $30,000 minimum — or had no insurance at all — your loved one’s own UM/UIM coverage steps in to cover the difference, up to the policy limits. This is not a claim against the at-fault driver; it is a claim under your loved one’s own policy, and it is the financial backstop that Texas built into the system precisely because minimum insurance is not enough for a serious crash. Many people carry UM/UIM limits of $100,000, $300,000, or more without realizing it.
Commercial Vehicle Coverage
If the at-fault vehicle was a commercial truck, the coverage landscape changes entirely. A for-hire interstate carrier hauling non-hazardous freight is federally required to carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage. A hazmat hauler may carry $1 million or $5 million. Above the federal floor, many carriers carry excess and umbrella policies that stack into the millions. The same head-on collision, caused by the same crossing of the center line, can have twenty-five times the available coverage if the at-fault vehicle was a commercial truck rather than a personal car. Identifying every policy in the tower — primary, excess, umbrella, and any additional-insured endorsements — is part of building the case.
The Hospital Lien
Texas law allows hospitals to file a lien on any settlement or judgment from a personal-injury case to secure payment for medical services provided. If your loved one was treated at a Midland hospital — or transferred to a trauma center in Lubbock or elsewhere — the hospital may file a lien that attaches to the proceeds of any recovery. The lien must be handled as part of the settlement, and negotiating or reducing it is part of what a lawyer does. But the lien is also proof of one thing: the medical bills are real, and the hospital knows there is a case worth attaching to.
What the Case Is Actually Worth
A case is worth the sum of its economic losses (medical bills, future medical care, lost wages, lost earning capacity, household services) plus its non-economic losses (pain and suffering, mental anguish, physical impairment, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life). In a catastrophic case — a brain injury, a spinal injury, a crush injury requiring amputation — the economic stream alone can run into the millions over a lifetime. A life-care plan, built by a certified life-care planner, prices out every surgery, every therapy session, every wheelchair and prosthesis replacement, every medication, and every caregiver hour across the injured person’s expected lifespan. A forensic economist reduces that future cost stream to present value. That is how a real demand number is built — not from a formula, but from the arithmetic of what this person’s life now costs.
The firm has recovered $5 million-plus in a brain-injury settlement, $3.8 million-plus in an amputation settlement, and $2.5 million-plus in a truck-crash recovery. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But those numbers exist because the cases were built from the medicine, the physics, the evidence, and the law — not from a settlement formula an adjuster pulled off a screen.
For a deeper discussion of how case value is calculated, Ralph Manginello breaks down what your case is worth in a video that walks through the real arithmetic.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook
Within hours of the crash on Andrews Highway, the at-fault driver’s insurance company opened a claim file. An adjuster was assigned. That adjuster has one job: to resolve the claim for the smallest amount of money possible. Everything that follows — every phone call, every letter, every “we just need a statement” request — is designed to achieve that outcome. Here are the plays the adjuster will run, in the order they typically appear, and the counter to each.
Play 1: The Friendly “Just Checking In” Call
Within days, someone will call your loved one — or you, if you are the family member — and identify themselves as being “from the insurance company.” They will sound warm. They will say they just want to “check on how everyone is doing” and “get a quick statement about what happened.” The call is recorded. Every word is being transcribed and will be used against you. “I’m feeling okay” becomes “the plaintiff reported feeling fine three days after the crash.” “I don’t remember exactly what happened” becomes “the plaintiff cannot identify the cause of the collision.” The counter is simple: do not give a recorded statement without a lawyer. You have no obligation to speak to the other driver’s insurance company. None. Say: “I am not giving a statement. Contact my attorney.” Then call us.
Play 2: The Medical Records Authorization
The adjuster will send a form called a “medical authorization” or “release” and ask your loved one to sign it so they can “verify your injuries.” The form they send is often broad — not limited to the crash-related treatment but covering your loved one’s entire medical history. The adjuster is looking for pre-existing conditions, prior injuries, anything they can use to argue that the current injuries were not caused by the crash. The counter: never sign a blanket medical release for the other driver’s insurance company. Provide the crash-related records directly, through your lawyer, after they have been reviewed for anything the defense can distort.
Play 3: The Fast Settlement Offer
The adjuster may make an offer quickly — within weeks of the crash — before the full extent of injuries is known. A brain injury may not be diagnosed for months. A spinal injury may require multiple surgeries. The full cost of care may not be clear until a life-care plan is built. The adjuster’s offer will be a fraction of what the case is worth, and it will come with a release that, once signed, extinguishes the claim forever — even if new injuries are discovered the next day. The counter: never accept a settlement before the full extent of injuries is documented. The time to settle is after the medical picture is complete, not before.
Play 4: The Surveillance and Social Media Watch
The insurance company may send an investigator to photograph your loved one — at home, at physical therapy, at the grocery store. They will monitor social media accounts. A photograph of your loved one smiling at a family event becomes “the plaintiff is not in pain.” A post about going to dinner becomes “the plaintiff’s activities are not limited.” The counter: assume you are being watched. Set social media to private. Do not post about the crash, about injuries, about activities, about the case. Do not discuss the case with anyone except your lawyer and your doctors.
Play 5: The “You Were Partly at Fault” Argument
In a head-on collision, the at-fault driver crossed the center line. That is the core fact. But the adjuster will still probe for anything that can shift percentage points of fault onto your loved one: Were they speeding? Could they have avoided the collision? Were their headlights on? Was their vehicle in good condition? Every percentage point of fault assigned to your loved one reduces the recovery under Texas’s comparative negligence rule. The counter: the evidence — the EDR data, the scene reconstruction, the witness statements, the police report — is what defeats the fault-shifting. That evidence has to be preserved and developed before the adjuster can set the narrative.
For more on what not to say to an adjuster, Ralph explains the insurance company’s tactics in a video that breaks down each play and how to counter it.
How a Head-On Collision Case Is Actually Built
Here is the chronological walk of how a case like this moves from the day of the crash to resolution — not a summary, but the actual sequence of work.
Week One. The preservation letter goes out. It goes to the at-fault driver, to their insurance company, to any commercial carrier involved, and to any third-party data vendor (like a dashcam or telematics provider). The letter demands that the vehicle be preserved, that the EDR and ECM data be downloaded before anything is overwritten, that the driver’s logs (if commercial) be retained, that any dashcam or surveillance footage be saved, and that the scene evidence be documented. This letter is the single most important early step in the case. It is what converts a fast-dying evidence trail into a frozen one.
Weeks Two to Four. The vehicle is inspected. If it is a commercial truck, the ECM is downloaded with the right forensic tool — not by the carrier’s own mechanic, but by an independent expert with a Bosch CDR or manufacturer-specific software. The EDR data from both vehicles is imaged. The police crash report is obtained and reviewed for accuracy. Witness statements are taken while memories are fresh. If scene reconstruction is needed, a reconstructionist photographs and measures the scene before the highway is repaved or evidence fades.
Months One to Three. The medical records are collected and organized. The full treatment record — from the ambulance run sheet to the ER triage note to the surgical reports to the rehabilitation notes — is assembled. If the injuries are catastrophic, a life-care planner is retained to build the future-care cost stream. A forensic economist is engaged to reduce that stream to present value. If liability is contested, a reconstruction expert is retained to analyze the physics of the collision — the closing speed, the delta-V, the point of impact, the angle of the at-fault vehicle’s crossing maneuver.
Months Three to Six. Discovery begins if a lawsuit has been filed. The at-fault driver is deposed. If a commercial carrier is involved, the safety director, the dispatcher, and the driver are all deposed under oath. The carrier’s hours-of-service records, driver-qualification file, maintenance records, and internal communications are produced. The defense’s medical expert examines your loved one — and that examination is attended by your lawyer or a representative, never left to the defense alone.
Months Six to Twelve and Beyond. The case moves toward resolution — through mediation, through settlement, or through trial. The number at the end is built from all of it: the frozen evidence, the medical documentation, the life-care plan, the economist’s present-value calculation, the reconstruction, the depositions, and the law. It is not a number an adjuster pulls from a screen. It is a number built from proof.
Your First 72 Hours: A Roadmap
If the crash on Andrews Highway happened today or within the past few days, here is what to do — and what not to do — in the first 72 hours.
Medical first, always. If your loved one has not been seen by a doctor, get them to one. Being pinned in a vehicle and extracted by fire crews means the forces were severe enough to cause injuries that may not be apparent in the first hours. Internal bleeding, spinal fractures, brain injuries, and crush injuries can all present subtly at first and deteriorate rapidly. If they were treated at Midland Memorial Hospital and released, follow up with a physician within days. If they were transferred to a trauma center in Lubbock or elsewhere, make sure every imaging study and lab result is documented and that follow-up appointments are scheduled. Delayed care is not just a medical risk — it creates a “gap in treatment” that the insurance company will use to argue the injuries were not serious.
Do not give a recorded statement. To anyone. Not the other driver’s insurance company, not your own insurance company (beyond reporting the basic facts of the crash), not a “claims investigator” who shows up at the hospital or your door. Say: “I am not giving a statement at this time.” Then call a lawyer.
Do not sign anything. No medical authorizations, no release forms, no settlement offers. If someone puts a document in front of you and asks you to sign it, read nothing — just say no and call a lawyer. The documents the insurance company pushes in the first 72 hours are designed to limit what they owe, not to help you.
Do not post on social media. Nothing about the crash, nothing about the injuries, nothing about how you are feeling, nothing about what happened. Set your accounts to private. Assume the insurance company is watching. They are.
Preserve everything. Save the clothing your loved one was wearing. Photograph the vehicle before it is moved or repaired. Photograph any visible injuries — bruising, lacerations, swelling — and keep photographing them as they change over the days and weeks. Keep every medical document, every discharge instruction, every appointment card, every prescription receipt. If your loved one has a dashcam, save the footage to a separate device immediately. If witnesses exchanged phone numbers at the scene, write down their names and numbers before the contacts are lost.
Call a lawyer. Not next month. Not after the medical bills start arriving. Now. The preservation letter — the document that freezes the evidence before it dies — goes out the day you call. Every day you wait is a day the dashcam footage overwrites, a day the EDR data degrades, a day the commercial truck’s ECM gets wiped by the next delivery run. The call is free. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win.
For a step-by-step guide on what to do after a crash, Ralph walks through the essential first steps — the medical decisions, the evidence preservation, and the conversations to avoid.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to file a lawsuit after a head-on collision in Midland, Texas?
Texas law gives you two years from the date of the crash to file a personal-injury lawsuit. This is the statute of limitations under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.003. If the collision resulted in a death, the wrongful-death claim is also subject to a two-year deadline. Two years sounds like a long time, but the evidence that proves your case — the black-box data, the dashcam footage, the truck’s hours-of-service logs — can be legally destroyed in weeks or months. The deadline to sue is two years. The deadline to save the evidence is measured in days.
What if the at-fault driver only had minimum insurance?
Texas requires 30/60/25 minimum coverage — $30,000 per person, $60,000 per accident, $25,000 property damage. In a serious head-on collision where someone was pinned, this is a fraction of the real cost. If the at-fault driver was uninsured or underinsured, your loved one’s own UM/UIM coverage — which Texas insurers are required to offer — can cover the difference up to the policy limits. Many people carry $100,000, $300,000, or more in UM/UIM without realizing it. We investigate every available policy, including the at-fault driver’s coverage, your loved one’s UM/UIM, and any commercial policies if a work vehicle was involved.
Can I still recover if my loved one was partly at fault?
Yes, as long as they were not 51% or more at fault. Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51% bar. If your loved one was 50% or less at fault, their recovery is reduced by their percentage of fault but is not eliminated. In a head-on collision where the other driver crossed the center line, the at-fault driver typically carries the overwhelming majority of fault. The insurance company will still try to shift percentage points — which is why preserving the evidence that proves the other driver caused the crossing maneuver is critical.
What if the at-fault vehicle was an oilfield truck?
If the vehicle that crossed the center line on Andrews Highway was a commercial truck — a water hauler, a frac sand truck, a crude tanker — the case is fundamentally different. Commercial carriers are subject to federal motor-carrier safety regulations, must carry far higher insurance ($750,000 minimum for interstate non-hazmat, $1 million to $5 million for hazmat), and must retain driver logs, vehicle inspection records, and drug-testing records that can prove fatigue, negligence, or regulatory violations. The carrier, the driver, and potentially the oil company that hired the hauler can all be defendants. These cases are more complex but can carry significantly more coverage.
How much is a head-on collision case worth?
There is no formula. A case is worth the sum of its economic losses (past and future medical bills, lost wages, lost earning capacity, household services, future care) plus its non-economic losses (pain and suffering, mental anguish, physical impairment, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life). In a catastrophic case — brain injury, spinal cord injury, amputation, crush injury — the lifetime economic cost alone can run into the millions. A life-care planner prices the future medical needs. A forensic economist converts that to present value. That is how a real demand is built. The firm has recovered $5 million-plus in brain-injury cases, $3.8 million-plus in amputation cases, and $2.5 million-plus in truck-crash cases. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Do I need to go to the hospital if I feel “mostly okay” after being extracted from a vehicle?
Yes. Being pinned in a vehicle and extracted by fire crews means the crash forces exceeded the vehicle’s structural limits. Internal bleeding, brain injuries, spinal fractures, and crush injuries can all present subtly in the first hours and deteriorate rapidly. A normal CT scan does not rule out a traumatic brain injury — the damage can be microscopic tearing of nerve fibers that a standard scan cannot see. Follow up with a physician within days of the crash, even if you were discharged from the ER. Delayed care is both a medical risk and a gap the insurance company will exploit.
What should I not say to the insurance adjuster?
Anything. Do not give a recorded statement. Do not describe your injuries. Do not say “I’m feeling okay.” Do not speculate about what happened. Do not apologize. Do not agree to sign a medical authorization. Do not accept a settlement offer. The adjuster’s job is to minimize what the insurance company pays. Every word you say is being recorded and will be used against you. Say: “I am not giving a statement. Contact my attorney.” Then call 1-888-ATTY-911.
How soon should I call a lawyer after a head-on collision?
The same day, if possible. The preservation letter — the document that orders the at-fault driver, their insurance company, and any commercial carrier to save the vehicle, the black-box data, the dashcam footage, the hours-of-service logs, and all other evidence — goes out the day you call a lawyer. Every day you wait is a day that evidence dies. The dashcam overwrites. The commercial truck’s ECM gets wiped on the next run. The vehicle gets sent to a salvage yard. The call is free. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win.
Why Attorney911
Ralph P. Manginello is the managing partner of The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. He has been licensed in Texas since November 6, 1998 — 27+ years of trial practice, including in federal court. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he learned early that the story is only as good as the evidence behind it. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. He is lead counsel in the active $10 million hazing lawsuit against Pi Kappa Phi and the University of Houston. He does not settle cases because they are hard. He tries them because the evidence demands it.
Lupe Peña is an associate attorney at the firm. He is a former insurance-defense attorney — he spent his early career inside a national defense firm, in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He knows how the reserve is set in the first 48 hours. He knows how the recorded-statement call is engineered. He knows how the valuation software discounts pain it cannot see. He knows which doctors the insurers pick for “independent” medical exams and how surveillance is deployed. He now uses all of that knowledge for injured clients. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter — because the family that prays in Spanish deserves the same depth of representation as any other family.
The firm has recovered $50 million+ in aggregate. We have recovered $5 million-plus in a brain-injury settlement, $3.8 million-plus in an amputation settlement, $2.5 million-plus in a truck-crash recovery. We have 4.9 stars across 251+ Google reviews. We have been in business since July 18, 2001 — 24+ years. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But those results exist because we build cases the way this page describes — from the evidence, the medicine, the physics, and the law — not from a settlement formula.
We serve clients across Texas, including Midland, the Permian Basin, and every county and corridor in between. We are based in Houston, with offices in Austin and Beaumont, and we take cases statewide. If your loved one was hurt on Andrews Highway — or on any road in the Permian Basin — we are a phone call away.
Hablamos Español
Lupe Peña conducts full consultations in Spanish, without an interpreter. If your family speaks Spanish at the kitchen table, in the hospital waiting room, and in prayer, you deserve a lawyer who meets you in that language — not through a translation app or a third-party service. We serve your family fully in Spanish. Hablamos Español.
The Call Is Free. The Clock Is Running.
Every hour that passes after a head-on collision on Andrews Highway is an hour the evidence decays. The dashcam footage overwrites. The black-box data degrades. The commercial truck’s ECM gets wiped on the next run. The vehicle gets sent to a salvage yard. The witness memories fade. The insurance adjuster’s narrative hardens.
You do not have to know the answers before you call. You do not have to have the police report. You do not have to know the at-fault driver’s insurance limits. You do not have to know whether a commercial truck was involved or whether UM/UIM coverage applies. You just have to call.
1-888-ATTY-911 (1-888-288-9911). Free consultation. No fee unless we win your case. 24/7 — a live person, not an answering service.
The preservation letter goes out the day you call. That is when the clock starts working for you instead of against you.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Contacting the firm is free and confidential. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.