When a catastrophic crash happens, the legal case starts hours later — while the family is still in the waiting room. Surveillance video gets overwritten on a thirty-day cycle. Vehicle event data gets wiped when the car is repaired. Tire marks fade in a week. Witnesses move, change phone numbers, forget. Every hour the case waits is an hour of evidence walking out the door. Here is what a catastrophic injury team should actually be doing in the first twenty-four hours.
A catastrophic injury case is won and lost on evidence that exists only because somebody preserved it. When a family calls the firm, the hospital is still treating the patient and the family is in shock. The defense, meanwhile, has its own clock running. The trucking company has already activated its rapid-response team. The rideshare platform has already started writing internal narratives about driver "app status." The premises owner has already pulled the staff aside and told them what they "remembered" seeing.
The job in the first twenty-four hours is to get every piece of evidence on the record before it can be lost or shaped. Here is the operational checklist, organized by what disappears fastest.
Surveillance footage is the single most valuable piece of objective evidence in a catastrophic crash case, and it is also the piece that disappears fastest. Most commercial systems run on a thirty-day overwrite cycle. Some big-box retailers and gas stations are on seven to fourteen days. Some small businesses and residential systems are on seventy-two hours. The clock is already running when the call comes in.
Within the first six hours we identify every camera angle that could have seen the incident:
Each property gets a written preservation letter, hand-delivered or sent overnight, identifying the timeframe and demanding preservation of footage. The letter creates the legal record that puts the property on notice. Once that notice is delivered, deletion or overwrite of the footage becomes spoliation and can support a jury instruction at trial.
Federal regulation 49 CFR Part 563 requires most passenger vehicles sold in the United States since 2014 to record event data on the airbag control module: vehicle speed, throttle position, brake application, steering input, seatbelt status, airbag deployment status, and roughly five seconds of pre-impact data. The data sits on the module until someone pulls it. The risks to the data are simple: the vehicle gets repaired (and the module replaced), the vehicle gets salvaged (and the module sold for parts), or the vehicle gets scrapped entirely.
Within the first twelve hours we identify the tow yard, send a written preservation letter, and arrange for inspection access. In commercial truck cases the protocol is the same plus a parallel preservation letter to the carrier covering electronic logging device records, dispatch logs, driver text messages, post-trip inspection reports, maintenance files, and the engine control module (which records additional data beyond the EDR). The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations impose specific document-retention duties on trucking carriers, and a properly drafted preservation letter invokes them by citation.
The physical scene degrades over hours, not weeks. Tire marks fade. Fluid stains wash away in rain. Vehicle parts get cleaned up by public works. Sight-line conditions change with light, weather, and seasonal foliage. Within twenty-four hours we deploy or schedule:
Independent eyewitnesses are the most credible factual evidence a plaintiff team can offer at trial — and they are the easiest evidence to lose. Witnesses move, change phone numbers, forget details that mattered, or get contacted by a defense investigator first. Within twenty-four hours we work the crash report for the witness list, run the witness names through public records to confirm contact information, and reach out by phone, email, and certified mail in that order.
Where possible we record a brief audio statement on first contact — with the witness's permission — capturing the basic narrative while the memory is still fresh. That recording is not for trial use; it is for case-development purposes. The formal statement comes later, in writing, drafted from the witness's own words.
On the medical side, the firm starts pulling records as soon as the family signs a HIPAA authorization. The first records that matter are the EMS run sheet (with the field Glasgow Coma Scale and the loss-of-consciousness documentation), the trauma bay flow sheet, the imaging on disc with the actual DICOM files (not just the report), and the operative notes if there has been emergency surgery. Herb Borroto, M.D., J.D., reads each of these as they come in, in real time, so that any further imaging or testing needed to fully document the injury can be coordinated with the treating team while the patient is still in active care.
Hospitals are not required to keep DICOM image files indefinitely; many systems migrate or compress files after a defined retention period. Getting the actual imaging on disc in the first weeks — not the radiology report alone — is one of those steps that costs nothing and proves invaluable years later.
If you are reading this because a catastrophic crash just happened, the most useful things a family can do are:
The first twenty-four hours are not about settlement strategy or trial themes. They are about freezing the evidence while it still exists. Everything else — the medicine, the experts, the courtroom — comes later. Without the evidence frozen in place, the later work is built on sand.
A preservation letter (sometimes called a spoliation letter) is a written notice to a party in possession of evidence that they have a legal duty to preserve it because litigation is anticipated. After a catastrophic crash, preservation letters typically go out the same day the firm is retained — to the trucking company, the rideshare platform, any commercial premises with surveillance cameras, the tow yard holding the vehicle, and any other entity with relevant evidence. Once the letter is delivered, destruction of the named evidence can support a spoliation instruction at trial.
Retention varies by system. Many commercial systems overwrite on a 30-day cycle. Some big-box retailers and gas stations cycle every 7 to 14 days. A small business or a residential system may overwrite in 72 hours. The only safe assumption is that the video is going away soon, and the only way to be sure it is preserved is to put the property owner on written notice immediately and follow up until they confirm preservation in writing.
Federal regulation 49 CFR Part 563 requires that most passenger vehicles sold in the United States since 2014 record event data — speed, throttle position, brake application, steering input, seatbelt status, airbag deployment — in the seconds before and during a crash. The data lives on the airbag control module and can be downloaded with proper equipment. The risk is that the vehicle gets repaired, salvaged, or scrapped before the download happens. A preservation letter to the tow yard and the insurance carrier should go out within hours of the crash. We discuss the EDR in detail in a separate post.
Speed, throttle, brake, steering, seatbelt — the five seconds before impact, frozen.
Save the DICOM disc. Read the scan, not just the report.
Driver app-status data must be preserved before the platform overwrites it.
Where preservation letters carry the most weight under FMCSR.
App-status data is platform-controlled and time-sensitive.
Commercial surveillance footage is the most important early evidence.
Preservation letters work best when they go out the day of the call. If a catastrophic crash just happened in your family, call now — the conversation is free, confidential, and there is no obligation to retain.
