Most Common Car Accident Injuries

Every year, almost 5 million Americans suffer car accident injuries. These injuries end up costing nearly $500 billion.

If you’re ever injured in a car accident, it’ll be important for you to seek medical treatment right away. Even if you don’t believe you were hurt that badly in a car accident, it would still be worth getting checked out at a hospital.

You might be able to file a car accident lawsuit later and get compensated for your car accident injuries. It’s why having a doctor look at you is important when you’re trying to figure out what to do after a car accident.

There are so many different car accident injuries that you can sustain, including both minor injuries and extremely major ones that often take place during dangerous car accidents.

Car Accident Injuries

Here are a bunch of the most common car accident injuries you might be diagnosed with following a crash.

Bumps and Bruises

When you’re in a car accident, you’re almost always going to have a few bumps and bruises.

Even if the crash took place at an incredibly low speed and didn’t do much damage to your car, you will get knocked around a little during it. It’ll lead to your body bruising.

In most cases, any bumps and bruises that you get during a car accident will go away on their own within a matter of a few days. But if they start to get worse at any point, it’ll be an indication that you need to get medical attention ASAP.

Bumps and bruises like this could be a clear-cut sign of other issues that are going on beneath the skin’s surface.

A strained muscle or even broken bones could be the cause of any bumps and bruises you have, and you obviously won’t want to ignore problems like this.

Cuts

You’re probably going to get more than just a few bumps and bruises when you’re in a car accident. It isn’t uncommon at all to walk away with a few cuts from a crash, too.

This will be especially true if any of your vehicle’s windows broke when you got into a car accident. Shattered auto glass can cut you badly and require medical attention.

Since there is no telling what may have cut you during a car accident, you won’t want to turn a blind eye to any cuts. You should have them evaluated to see if you might need stitches or maybe even shots to protect your health.

Broken Bones

If you get into a car accident that’s a little more serious than just a minor fender-bender, you could very well end up with one or two broken bones. There are a whole bunch of bones that you can break when you’re involved in a car crash.

You could break some of your ribs if you were wearing a seatbelt during your accident (which is always better than the alternative!). You could also break one of your hands or even the foot you use to push down on the gas and brake pedals.

It’ll usually be pretty easy to tell that you have a broken bone in your body. But there might be some instances in which you won’t notice that you have a bone that’s broken until a few days after a crash.

Whatever the case, you should always get medical care for any broken bones. Otherwise, you could deal with long-term consequences tied to them.

Whiplash

When you run into the back of another car or another car runs into the back of you, you more than likely won’t have enough time to brace yourself. This could lead to your whole head and neck violently snapping forward during a crash.

If this happens, you might suffer what’s called whiplash. It’s a neck condition that can cause a lot of pain and force you to go through many months of physical therapy and sometimes even additional medical treatments to get any relief.

The tough thing about whiplash is that you aren’t always going to know that it’s impacting you right away. You might think you’re okay after a car crash only to later discover that you can’t turn your head at all due to neck pain.

You should keep an eye out for any signs of whiplash in the days after getting into a car accident. If it begins to rear its ugly head, you’ll know that it’s time to have a doctor look at your neck to see what’s going on.

Slipped Disc

A car accident can wreak havoc on more than just your neck when you’re unable to brace yourself before a crash. It can also take a huge toll on your back and cause all sorts of back pain.

A slipped disc is one of the many back issues that you might encounter after getting into a car crash. As the name of this condition suggests, it involves one of the discs in your back slipping out of place, and it could cause a ridiculous amount of pain in some instances.

If you’re diagnosed with a slipped disc, you’ll typically need to do more than give your back time to heal and do physical therapy. You might also need to go as far as to have surgery on your back to make things right.

This is when you’ll start to get into car accident lawsuit territory. You should visit this website to learn about the options you’ll have when it comes to taking legal action against another driver and their car insurance company.

Concussions

If you hit your head hard enough on just about anything, you can suffer a concussion. So as you might imagine, there is a decent chance that you could sustain a concussion during a car crash, especially if you don’t have a seatbelt on.

Your head could hit your steering wheel, your dashboard, or your windshield and leave you with a concussion. You could even hit your head on an airbag as it’s being deployed and get a concussion.

In many instances, getting a concussion during a car accident will be better than suffering some of the other bad injuries that you can sustain. But a concussion can be very serious at times and will call for you to see a doctor for an evaluation.

Traumatic Brain Injury

Although a concussion isn’t going to be particularly pleasant, it also isn’t going to be the end of the world. You should be able to recover from it within a few weeks, if not much sooner than that.

A traumatic brain injury, or a TBI, is a different story. If you’re ever diagnosed with a TBI following a car accident, you might suffer from memory loss, mood swings, and more.

In a worst-case scenario, a TBI can even put you into a coma for an extended period of time.

If you sustain a TBI, there is a good chance that you’ll need to be taken away from the scene of a car crash in an ambulance. You might also need to spend a ton of time in the hospital trying to make a full recovery.

Burns

Fires will sometimes start in the immediate aftermath of car accidents. This can lead to the next most common car accident injuries—burns.

Unfortunately, there will be times when those who are in car accidents aren’t able to get out of their vehicles following these crashes. If a fire happens to start while they’re stuck inside, it could lead to them suffering burns on their limbs, torsos, and even faces.

Because people are usually exposed to these fires for at least a few minutes, these burns can be very bad, too.

It can leave some people looking disfigured and put them in a position where they’ll have to spend their fair share of time healing before they can have plastic surgery performed to make them look close to the way they used to again.

You’re going to have a long road to recovery ahead of you if you sustain any burns during a car crash. You’ll want to speak with a car accident lawyer to see how you should proceed.

Internal Bleeding

Most of the car accident injuries that we’ve listed here thus far will be pretty obvious to some degree. It’s going to be difficult to miss, say, a broken bone or even something like a concussion.

But internal bleeding is different. It can go undetected at times since you won’t be able to tell that this type of bleeding is taking place.

This is one of the top reasons to take a trip to a hospital after a car crash. The last thing you want to do is put off medical care only to later discover that you were suffering from internal bleeding that did serious damage.

Loss of Limbs

Sadly, there are some people who will lose their limbs in car accidents. Their arms and/or legs will get stuck in awkward positions and force amputations to occur.

If you ever lose a limb, it’s going to have a big impact on your life as you move forward. You might struggle with mobility issues if you lose a leg, and you might have a difficult time working at certain jobs if you lose an arm.

Losing a limb will be a life-changing experience that you’ll want to discuss with a car accident lawyer. They might be able to help you get your hands on the compensation you’ll need to get your life somewhat back to normal again.

Paralysis

Over the years, studies have shown that there are between 5 and 6 million paralyzed people living in the U.S. At least some of these people were paralyzed in car accidents.

People who are paralyzed have suffered spinal cord injuries. And while there are many ways in which you can injure your spinal cord, doing it in a car crash is one of the most common ways you can do it.

Not everyone who is paralyzed in a car accident will be confined to a wheelchair forever. Some people will recover from paralysis to a certain degree and be able to maintain somewhat normal lives.

But paralysis caused by a car accident is going to have at least some repercussions when it comes to your life. A car accident lawyer will be able to help you make the most of a bad situation by getting you the compensation you need.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

All of the car accident injuries we’ve listed here so far are physical injuries. But it’s worth noting that a car accident can also cause you to suffer from mental health injuries.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is one of the conditions you might find yourself dealing with following a car crash. You’ll struggle to move past the trauma that you suffered during this crash, and you might have flashbacks of it from time to time that will terrify you.

The good news is that you should be able to treat PTSD with therapy and possibly even medication. But the bad news is that it can also linger for a long time if you aren’t intentional enough about trying to treat it.

Consider Filing a Lawsuit After Suffering Car Accident Injuries

A few of the car accident injuries listed here aren’t going to affect your life too much. Some minor bumps and bruises, for example, will clear up in a few days.

But some of these car accident injuries could also leave a lasting impact on your life. A slipped disc in your back, a bad burn on your face, or the loss of a limb could change you as a person forever.

You may deserve to collect compensation because of the car accident injuries you suffered.

Read more informative articles about car accidents by checking out everything else our blog has to offer.