“Were you hurt?” is usually the first question you are asked when you tell someone about your automobile accident. Depending on the type of vehicles involved, the speed the cars were traveling, and many other variables, injuries go hand in hand with car collisions. When you are hurt in an accident and perhaps cannot work right away, you may also need treatment, transportation to get treatment, and help making your financial responsibilities. Contact a personal injury attorney immediately to learn more about how to recover your financial losses and gain compensation for your injuries when someone else caused the accident.
Car accident injuries vary broadly. You might have localized pain, or many different bruises or fractures. Or, you may have suffered mental and emotional distress and are having many symptoms from the experience. It is even possible you have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. Each will require its own type of treatment to help promote recovery.
A Comprehensive List of Car Accident Injuries
Head and Neck Injuries
Seat belts, airbags, and other protections within your car help to tamp the severity of injuries. But when a violent car accident happens, there is little to protect your head and neck from the results of impact such as broken glass, flying debris, or colliding with the steering wheel or chemicals from the inflated air bag. You could sustain facial bruises, broken bones in your face, whiplash or cervical strain in your neck or contusions everywhere. More serious injuries to the head could result in brain trauma or injury. A full examination is always recommended to determine if the accident has caused any brain injury. Tests often are needed to learn if there is any bleeding or swelling in the brain when the head has been impacted. Sadly, when a traumatic brain injury occurs, the effects can be lifelong and could summon the need for lifelong care if the injury is serious enough.
Back Fractures and Strain
When a vehicle collides while moving at 55 miles per hour or faster, the torque from being struck can cause any number of back fractures, injury to your discs, or back muscle spasms or strains. Back injuries can affect every movement and require weeks or sometimes months to heal with physical therapy. Worse injuries could require surgery to repair. Back injuries often do not present immediately; pain can appear days or weeks later. The greatest fear among medical professionals when a back injury is present at the accident is the threat of a neurological injury to the spinal cord. Because the spinal cord is an extension of your brain and central nervous system, trauma can lead to permanent problems with sensation, chronic pain, or even paralysis.
Internal Injuries
At the time of the vehicle-related accident, first responders know what signs to look for to assess the injuries quickly. At times, a victim’s internal injuries do not appear immediately but are discovered hours or days later. There could be injuries to any number of organs such as lungs, kidneys, bowels, spleen, or other organs. Even when someone does not feel severe pain following an accident, a trip to receive a full medical assessment right away is necessary to rule out any internal injuries that are not present immediately.
Emotional and Mental Car Accident Injuries You Can’t Always See When a catastrophic event occurs such as a car accident, everyone reacts differently. Some people are immediately resilient while others are impacted severely. Witnessing an accident can be traumatic but witnessing a vehicle accident as it happening to you may cause shock, anxiety, or depression—immediately or weeks or months later. PTSD is very common among car accident victims and can bring many symptoms of anger, lack of sleep, eating disorders, fear of driving to mention a few.
Call Arizona’s Auto Accident Attorney
When a loved one has sustained injuries from a car accident, life changes for the injured person but also for everyone in the family. If you or a loved one has been in a serious accident and have been injured, or worse, if your loved one was killed, call our firm to learn your rights from an experienced auto accident attorney. At Brad Johnson Injury Law, we are prepared to guide you through the process of figuring out exactly what happened and to assign fault. We can help your family get just compensation for your injuries and the many losses caused by the vehicle accident. Call us today.