Hit by a Drunk Driver in Columbus?

If you’ve been hit by a driver you suspect is impaired, call 911 right away. Report the accident and tell the dispatcher you believe the other driver may be under the influence. Law enforcement will prioritize the response.

Do not confront the impaired driver. People under the influence of alcohol or drugs can be unpredictable and potentially dangerous. Stay in your vehicle or at a safe distance until police and EMS arrive.

Under Ohio law, any accident involving injury must be reported. The responding officers will assess the other driver for signs of impairment and may conduct field sobriety tests and a breathalyzer.

Assess yourself and your passengers for injuries. Drunk driving accidents tend to be high-impact collisions because impaired drivers often fail to brake or react before impact. Severe injuries — traumatic brain injuries, spinal damage, broken bones, internal bleeding — are common.

If your vehicle is drivable, move to the shoulder or a safe location. If not, turn on hazard lights and stay inside until help arrives. Columbus’s major corridors — I-70, I-71, I-270, and busy surface streets like Cleveland Avenue, Broad Street, and High Street — are particularly dangerous at night, when most drunk driving accidents occur.

Use your phone to photograph: all vehicles and damage, the road and conditions, any bottles, cans, or containers visible in or near the other vehicle, the other driver’s behavior (if it’s safe to observe), traffic signals, signs, and road markings, skid marks or the absence of them (drunk drivers often don’t brake), and your injuries.

Exchange information with the other driver: name, phone number, insurance details, driver’s license number, and plate number. Get witness names and contact information.

Note what you observe about the other driver — slurred speech, smell of alcohol, bloodshot eyes, unsteady movement, open containers. These observations support both the criminal case and your civil claim. However, do not make accusations at the scene.

When police arrive, they’ll assess the scene and the other driver. If they suspect impairment, they’ll conduct field sobriety tests and may request a breath, blood, or urine test. In Ohio, operating a vehicle while impaired is called OVI (Operating a Vehicle Impaired), and the legal BAC limit is 0.08%.

Cooperate with the officers. Give them your account of what happened. Ask for the responding officer’s name, badge number, and the report number.

The criminal OVI case against the drunk driver is separate from your civil claim for compensation — but the evidence gathered in the criminal case (BAC results, field sobriety test failure, the officer’s observations) is powerful evidence for your personal injury claim.

Even if your injuries seem manageable at the scene, get to a hospital or doctor within 24 hours. Drunk driving collisions often involve high speeds and violent impacts that cause injuries with delayed symptoms.

OhioHealth Grant Medical Center (Level I trauma center), The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital, and Mount Carmel Health System provide emergency and trauma care in Columbus. Keep all medical records, bills, and documentation.

The drunk driver’s insurance company may reach out with a settlement offer, sometimes within days. Do not accept it. Early offers are almost always far below the actual value of your claim. You won’t know the full extent of your injuries — or the long-term costs of your recovery — for weeks or months after the accident.

You are not required to give the insurance company a recorded statement. Politely decline until you’ve spoken with an attorney.

Under Ohio Rev. Code § 2305.10, you have two years from the date of the accident to file a personal injury lawsuit against the drunk driver. If the drunk driving accident resulted in death, the wrongful death statute of limitations is also two years from the date of death under Ohio Rev. Code § 2125.02.

Don’t wait. Drunk driving accident cases benefit from early attorney involvement — preserving BAC evidence, obtaining the police report and criminal case records, and building the strongest possible claim while evidence is fresh.

Drunk driving accident cases are among the strongest personal injury cases because the at-fault driver’s impairment is clear evidence of negligence (and often recklessness). An experienced attorney can leverage the criminal OVI case evidence for your civil claim, pursue compensation from the drunk driver’s insurance, investigate whether a bar or restaurant is liable under Ohio’s dram shop law, seek punitive damages if the driver’s conduct was particularly reckless, and calculate the full value of your damages.

Most personal injury attorneys handle drunk driving accident cases on contingency — you pay nothing unless they recover compensation for you.