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10 Common Injuries After a Car Accident

Concussions

Concussions from car accidents are the most common injury you can suffer from after a car wreck. One way a concussion can occur is from having your head hit the steering wheel in a car accident. Many people feel extremely tired after a car accident and thus may not notice they have a concussion. This is why it is very important to get medical treatment as soon as possible.

Bruising and Contusions

Even the smallest fender bender can cause serious bruising. Collisions can slam your body into the seat belt, steering wheel, or side window. While your seat belt can help prevent serious harm, it can leave you with bruising that can last for days to weeks after the crash. Bruises should heal within a few weeks; however, if you have bruising that does not heal or is extremely painful, it may require medical attention as it may mean something more serious is going on.

Whiplash

Car Injury Whiplash

Whiplash most often occurs when you’ve been hit from behind in a rear end accident. The force of the car hitting you causes your neck and upper back to suddenly move back and forth, stretching your muscles and ligaments beyond their normal range at speeds at which they should not move which can easily cause serious damage.

Soft tissue injuries such as whiplash, can cause severe damage to the neck and spine. The pain and discomfort felt in your neck and upper back after can take several weeks to recover , can be very painful and while rarely permanent, may require physical therapy or other means of pain management. Whiplash may also be delayed in appearing.

Whiplash Symptoms

Common whiplash symptoms include neck pain and stiffness, fatigue, loss of range of motion in the neck, headaches, shoulder tenderness, tingling or numbness in the arms, dizziness, and more. Seeking immediate medical attention after an auto accident will help determine how severe your injuries are. A whiplash lawyer can help you recover financial compensation for your auto accident injuries.

Broken Bones

The forceful impact of a collision can put your body under a great amount of stress that’s so significant it can leave your skeleton unable to handle the pressure. When this happens, your bones may break. Your arm may be pinned between your body and the steering column causing a fractured wrist or your body may slam against the seat belt so hard that ribs break. Broken bones are very common in car accidents. While rarely life-threatening, broken bones take significant time to heal. Many broken bones require surgery to fix. If treatment goes well, you may only need a couple of months to recover.
Depending upon your location in the vehicle and the location of the impact, many different bones can be fractured in a car accident. Pelvic bones are one of the most common broken bones after a car accident, followed by fibula and femur breaks (broken legs). Other commonly broken bones include arms, wrists, clavicles, hips, ribs, facial bones, and the skull.

Internal Bleeding

The force from a car accident can cause serious damage to your internal organs and cause them to bleed. Organs are delicate and if injured, they need to be quickly treated by a medical professional to prevent permanent damage or death. Internal bleeding injuries are common in high-speed car accidents. If you feel weakness on one side, pain in your abdomen, dizziness, or exhibit deep purple bruising after a car accident, seek medical attention immediately as you may have internal bleeding.

 

Traumatic Brain Injuries

Car Accident Injuries

A traumatic brain injury occurs when a sudden trauma causes damage to your brain.  A brain injury from a car wreck could result from your head hiting an object or an object pierced the skull and entered the brain tissue.  A car wreck can cause many types of serious head and brain injuries, including diffuse axonal brain injury (brain structures tear because of severe head rotation), penetration injuries, coup-countercoup brain injury (injuries on both sides of the brain caused by sudden movement within the skull), acquired brain injuries (not sustained due to impact but from blood loss and other issues), and more.

Symptoms of a Traumatic Brain Injury

Symptoms of a traumatic brain injury can range from mild to severe depending on the extent of the damage. Symptoms can include loss of consciousness, headache, confusion, lightheadedness, blurred vision, ringing in the ears, a change in sleep patterns, behavior or mood changes, and trouble with attention and critical thinking. Traumatic brain injuries must be treated by a medical professional for the best chance to fully recover. Some car accident victims never fully recover from a traumatic brain injury and are left permanently disabled.

Neck Injuries

A car accident can cause a broken neck or cervical fracture. The cervical spine contains seven vertebrae from C-1 to C-7 and a broken neck can involve one or more of these vertebrae. If serious enough, a broken neck can become one of the most common fatal injuries caused by car accidents. When close to the base of the skull, a broken neck is often called a hangman’s fracture, which is a type of hyperextension injury. The least serious type may not even disable you right away and you might think it’s just whiplash, but one wrong move can cause a tenuous hairline fracture to break further and paralyze you, which is why it’s so important to seek medical treatment as soon as possible after a car accident even if you think you are not severely injured.

Back Injuries

Back injuries are common in auto accidents, and many require surgery. Some of the most common types of back surgery after a car accident include spinal fusion, kyphoplasty (the insertion of a balloon into the fractured vertebra to allow for bone cement injection), discectomy, laminectomy, and vertebroplasty (injecting bone cement into a vertebra to repair a spinal fracture).

Face Injuries

Facial injuries involve the eyes, mouth, face, and jaw. If you have a change in feeling or lose feeling in your face, you have difficulty breathing through your nose, you experience double vision, or if your face is deformed or uneven after a car crash, you should seek immediate medical attention.

Internal Injuries

Internal injuries can be especially dangerous because they often show no external signs. Common internal injuries caused by motor vehicle collisions include brain bleed, pneumothorax, organ injury, internal bleeding, ruptured spleen, punctured lungs, and more.

It’s important to remember that while you may recover from less serious car accident injuries within a few days however, many car accident injuries require professional medical evaluation and treatment. Remember – not all injuries appear the day of the accident. If you start to feel pain or find yourself having trouble concentrating after a car accident, seek medical treatment immediately.

Filing a Car Accident Injury Claim

If you or a loved one was injured in a car accident, contact the car accident lawyers in Pearland, TX at J.D. Silva and Associates today. Our car accident attorneys have the experience to get you the compensation to you need to pay for the injuries caused by the responsible driver.

 

No accident is too big or too small; if you are needing a professional to take care of your case this is the man for the job! My accident happened in Clute TX, a small city in Brazoria County. I didn’t think I would get the help I needed, but thankfully I came across J.D. Silva & Associates to take care of me in my time of need! Very helpful!

– Fernando Ventura