Talk to anyone who was in a severe car accident and they will say one strange thing. They may remember the impact and what it was like to get tossed around, but they almost never actually hear the crash. For the most part, car accidents are silent for the people involved in them.
This can be due to their memory distorting the accident as a result of the trauma of going through an accident. One of the most common car accident injuries aren’t even physical; many people emerge from a wreck with more mental scars than physical. Yet, car accidents can inflict physical injuries, too.
And the physical injuries car accidents inflict can be more debilitating than the mental scars. In some of the most severe cases, people may end up in wheelchairs or bedridden. They may lose limbs as a result of a car accident.
However, people may also emerge from a wreck unfazed. The kinds and severity of injuries car accidents can inflict vary. Keep reading below to learn about some of the most common injuries, and what to do if you’re injured during a car accident.
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1. Most Car Accident Injuries Hurt Your Muscles
When you’re involved in a car accident, your body moves in ways it’s not supposed to go. The jolt of the impact can send you soaring, and the sudden increase in speed can damage your ligaments. In fact, muscle injuries are some of the most common injuries people get from wrecks.
A muscle injury can form anywhere two bones connect. The most common kind of muscle injury, especially in cases of rear-ends, is neck whiplash. The sudden push from another car jolts your body and pulls your muscles, leaving you sore or worse.
There’s no real way to avoid a muscle injury from a car accident, too. Trying not to tense up at the moment of impact may reduce your risk for such an injury, but your chances depend on the speeds each car was going.
2. Car Accident Trauma Leaves Lasting Scars
The trauma from being in a car accident isn’t always visible. In fact, one of the most common causes of PTSD is from regular car accidents. Wrecks force people to face the fragility of life and the cold reality that at any moment, their lives may end.
A realization like that is bound to foment some mental disability. After a car accident, people may try to avoid the area where it occurred. They may fear driving for a while and will have to reacclimate to daily life on the road.
The best way to help someone who develops PTSD as a result of a car accident is to help them feel in control of their lives again. To do that, you may want to call a lawyer specializing in personal injury law, like Farris Riley & Pitt. By going through a lawsuit, the car accident victim will see justice done and may feel like they regained control of their life.
3. Head Injuries Should Be Immediately Treated
After a severe car accident, people may feel like they have a headache or they may have a hard time focusing on things. It may feel hard to think, and they may want to go to sleep. Yet, that’s the last thing you should do after a car accident.
People who experience headaches after a car accident likely have a concussion. While concussions will go away if given enough time, they can pose serious risks to your health. They can cause a person to go unconscious and may contribute to long-term health issues.
You should get checked for a concussion immediately after a car accident. Notify any responders if you have a headache so that you can be appropriately treated before it gets any worse.
4. Chest and Stomach Injuries Can be Severe
Another common issue after car accidents is soreness in the abdomen. Most of the time, the soreness isn’t too severe. Usually, it’s the result of a person’s speed belt doing its job and holding them back, eating into their body and stretching some abdominal muscles.
A little soreness is a good price to pay in exchange for not flying through a windshield. Yet, sometimes the soreness isn’t only the result of a pulled muscle.
Instead, it can be due to a serious issue with a person’s ribcage. Seatbelts may force you back too hard, or the impact may be so severe that it cracks one of your ribs. And an untreated broken bone can lead to severe health issues or even death.
So be sure to schedule a check-up with your doctor, even if all you feel is soreness in your abdomen.
5. Check For Cuts and Scrapes
When two cars collide, windows usually break and metal may fly. Both of those things can be sharp and cut through flesh as if it were paper. Worse, small glass and metal shards may end up lodged in your body, causing infections or worse.
Sometimes, these may be so small that they may not even draw too much blood. You may walk away from an accident thinking you were only scraped with minor cuts when in reality you sustained more severe injuries. The amount of bleeding from a cut is only one indicator of how severe it may be.
The location of a cut may cause severe bleeding with time. For example, a cut on your head may not bleed much at first, but it heals slowly. You may bleed from a scrape on your head for hours. Scrapes can also indicate internal bleeding, which takes longer to heal than typical cuts.
If you notice that you’re bleeding in any way after a car accident, make sure emergency personnel check it. Don’t leave the scene without making sure a scrape is only a scrape and isn’t actually much worse.
Car Accident Injuries Can Vary in Severity
Not all car accident injuries leave people in a wheelchair or stuck in a state of shock. Sometimes, people emerge from a wreck without a single thing wrong with them. Yet, it’s better to be safe than sorry even if you feel fine after a car accident.
Be sure you see a doctor to ensure you didn’t sustain any serious injuries. By visiting a medical professional, you also start a paper trail to help you in court if you need to pay medical bills as a result of a car accident. Your body is a complex machine, and the slightest injury can grow into a full-fledged medical condition.
And if you’re not sure whether the injury you suffered from a car accident is severe or not, keep reading here. We update our website with health-related information to complement what your doctor tells you, and to keep you informed about how to stay healthy. Even after a car accident!
