New Mexico's government-notice deadline is the part that blindsides people.

If your crash happened on property owned or controlled by the City of Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, UNM, APS, the state, or another public entity, the usual personal injury timeline is not the first deadline that matters. Under the New Mexico Tort Claims Act, written notice usually has to go out within 90 days of the accident.

Miss that, and the government's first move is simple: ask the court to kill the case before it ever gets to the real damage.

PTSD after a crash counts. Proving it is the fight.

For a physical therapist, this kind of injury can be brutal in a very specific way. Your job is movement, body mechanics, patient transfers, demonstration, staying calm while somebody else is in pain. If a major wreck on government property leaves you white-knuckling it down Lomas, avoiding I-40 at dusk, or shaking when you approach a parking deck at UNMH, that is not "just stress."

PTSD and severe driving anxiety can absolutely be part of a New Mexico injury claim.

So can insomnia, panic attacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, and not being able to make the drive from the Northeast Heights to Downtown without feeling like another impact is coming.

And Albuquerque has the kind of driving conditions that make trauma worse. Extreme sun glare on east-west roads at dawn and dusk is no joke. A rear-end hit when the sun is blasting across I-40, Central, or Paseo can wire your brain to expect danger every time you drive into that same light again. Same with arroyos and those "Do Not Cross When Flooded" signs around town and on the edges of the metro. People see those wash crossings after storms and relive the crash before they even realize it.

The insurance company will still try the same cheap line: you already had anxiety, you already had back pain, your job is stressful, this is wear and tear, not trauma.

That's where your treatment record matters more than your own description.

Missing the 90-day notice deadline is where it gets ugly

This is not the ordinary "I've got three years to file" situation people hear about.

For government defendants in New Mexico, the notice issue comes first. Not later. First.

If you missed 90 days, the next question is whether the government already had what courts call actual notice of the likelihood of a claim. That does not mean somebody at the scene saw the wreck and wrote a report. It does not mean a city employee knew you were hurt. It means the right public entity had enough information, in time, to understand it could face a claim from this incident.

That argument can succeed, but it's not easy.

A crash report alone often does not save you. An internal incident report might not save you. Telling a supervisor at a public hospital might not save you. The government will say none of that gave proper legal notice of a claim for PTSD, wage loss, treatment costs, and long-term impairment.

And because PTSD often shows up clearly after the wreck, not at the roadside, this deadline can be especially vicious. You may have spent the first month thinking you were "just shaken up," then another month trying to push through work, then another trying to sleep. By then the 90 days may already be gone.

A physical therapist's case rises or falls on the paper trail

If this happened in Albuquerque, the useful evidence is usually boring and unglamorous:

• the crash report, employer attendance records, mental health treatment notes, primary care records, medication changes, and documentation showing when driving became medically and professionally disabling

That timeline matters because the defense will say your symptoms were delayed, exaggerated, or caused by old injuries from years of patient lifting, transfers, and standing all day.

Here's what most people don't realize: for a physical therapist, PTSD after a crash is not just "fear of driving." It can affect home health visits, outpatient clinic commutes, crossing busy intersections between facilities, even tolerance for sudden alarms, brakes, gurney movement, or patients who lose balance unexpectedly. When those limitations start showing up in charting, missed shifts, route changes, or work restrictions, the case gets harder to dismiss as drama.

If the notice deadline passed, the case may turn on tiny facts

Which government entity owned the property? Was it actually city property, or was it a private contractor's lot? Was the dangerous condition created by a non-government driver rather than the property owner? Did any public employee document your injuries in a way that shows actual notice? Did a risk management office get written information early, even if you did not label it a "Tort Claims Act notice"?

That's the level this turns on.

Not broad fairness. Not "but they knew." Specific facts.

If there is still a viable claim and money eventually comes in, then the other ugly part starts: Medicare, Medicaid, private health insurance, and sometimes hospital liens all line up for reimbursement out of the settlement. New Mexico patients get hit by this all the time. A lot of people think a settlement check means the whole amount is theirs. It isn't. The settlement pie gets sliced before you touch most of it, and government payers are not shy about taking their bite.

But if the Tort Claims Act notice issue knocks out the claim, there may be no settlement pie at all. That's why the missed 90-day deadline is not some technical side issue. In an Albuquerque PTSD crash case on government property, it's the whole damn fight.