Getting hurt in a car accident can turn your entire life upside down. When this happens, you’re entitled to collect damages and compensation from the person who caused your injury, so that you can pay your bills and maintain a reasonable quality of life while you recover or deal with the other medical and emotional consequences.
The specific damages you can request depend on how exactly you were injured. Some damages from car accidents are more common than others, and it’s important to know how these affect your case. Read about the most frequent and common car accident injuries, and how a car accident attorney can help you get the best chance to collect damages.
COMMON CAR ACCIDENT INJURIES
Common car accident injuries, unfortunately, also tend to be among the most serious kinds of injuries. Some are easier to pursue for compensation than others — whiplash, for example, is a very common injury that can also be difficult to pursue in court due to its spectrum of severity and specific symptoms.
The most common injuries suffered in these kinds of accident involve the head, back, neck and chest, though injuries to the extremities aren’t uncommon.
INJURY TO THE HEAD AND BACK
Head trauma is one of the most serious consequences you can suffer from any accident. We’ve seen a lot about traumatic brain injury and concussion in the news, and these consequences often occur when drivers and passengers strike their heads off of the dashboard, door, steering wheel or other surfaces. Even hitting the airbag can cause head trauma. Symptoms can range from headaches to paralysis and can include loss of vision, loss of feeling in the extremities, mood swings, mental health problems and more.
Back injuries can also result from a car accident, and an injury to your spinal cord can create nerve damage that might last the rest of your life. It can leave you with reduced function and mobility, paralysis and can even result in death. Those who survive spinal injury can suffer lifetime disabilities or can take years to recover.
INJURY TO THE CHEST AND NECK
Blunt force trauma to the chest in a car accident can cause your heart to stop, collapse your lungs, cause broken ribs and a range of other internal damage. Internal bleeding can put your life at immediate risk and cause a number of other complications that need to be addressed right away.
Neck injuries involve upper spinal damage, which causes similar effects to a back injury. In addition, whiplash is very common and results from your head “whipping” forward and back.
SEEKING COMPENSATION
Your best bet to get compensated for your medical bills, rehabilitation costs, pain and suffering, emotional trauma, loss of relationships and other injuries is to seek help from an experienced local car accident attorney. The right attorney will offer you the best chance at getting the full compensation you need to make ends meet and recover from your injuries so you can get your life back. For a consultation on your case at no cost, call Koberlein Law Offices for help today.