Common Injuries from a Car Accident in Florida

Car accidents almost always cause disabling injuries.

Every year, car accidents cause serious injuries that kill or disable millions of Americans. For the most part, these accidents are not “accidents.” People accidentally lose their keys. They do not accidentally speed excessively or drive drunk and cause collisions.

Since accidents do not cause injuries, at least in most cases, a Brandon personal injury lawyer can obtain substantial compensation in court. This compensation usually includes money for economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering.

TBIs

Severe Traumatic Brain Injuries (sTBIs) are very common in high-speed crashes, such as highway collisions. During such wrecks, the victim’s head usually slams into an air bag-covered steering wheel or dashboard. That’s roughly like putting a pillow on your head and catapulting into a brick wall at 60mph. The air bag, no matter how advanced, cannot possibly absorb all that force.

Moderate Traumatic Brain Injuries (mTBIs), or concussions, are common in low-speed fender-bender crashes, like parking lot or sidestreet collisions. Individually, concussions are not that serious. But the cumulative effects of concussions cause CTE, a degenerative brain disease that is usually fatal.

If a pre-existing condition, like a prior concussion, contributed to the risk and/or severity of injury, such as CTE, a Brandon personal injury lawyer can obtain compensation for the CTE.

Broken Bones

Airbags significantly reduce the number of head injuries. But they usually do not affect other kinds of car crash injuries, such as broken bones, especially broken arm and leg bones. During collisions, these limbs usually flail wildly and often slam against solid objects, like the underside of the dashboard.

The severe force of a wreck usually crushes bones as opposed to breaking them. As a result, doctors must use metal parts to surgically reconstruct these bones. The more complex procedure increases the amount of medical bills.

The increase continues during physical therapy, which is longer and more difficult due to the more extreme surgical treatment. Even after doctors and physical therapists do their jobs, these victims usually have some permanent disabilities, such as a lost range of motion in an elbow or shoulder.

Internal Injuries

Continuing a familiar theme, extreme car crash force and motion often causes internal organs to smash against one another.

Kidneys and other internal organs do not have protective skin layers. As a result, even a slight abrasion bleeds profusely. Such internal bleeding is hard to spot and even harder to stop. In fact, by the time car crash victims reach hospitals, they have often lost about a fifth of their blood and are in the early stages of hypovolemic shock.

PTSD

The aforementioned injuries are usually apparent almost immediately. But Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which affects about half of car crash victims, is impossible to diagnose that quickly. PTSD symptoms mimic NSR (normal stress response) symptoms, and NSR is a temporary condition that goes away on its own.

Anxiety, anger, nightmares, and other PTSD symptoms are normally disabling. There is no PTSD cure. Available medications only treat the symptoms, and these drugs are not equally effective for all victims.

Connect With a Hard-Hitting Hillsborough County Attorney

Vehicle collisions cause serious injuries. For a confidential consultation with an experienced personal injury lawyer in Brandon, contact Carman & Finegan, P.A. You have a limited amount of time to act.