Injured After a Car Crash in Missouri? You May Have a Long Road to Recovery.
Here are some cold, hard facts: Automobile accidents in Missouri killed 870 people and injured 4,402 in 2015. Stunning stuff, right? It’s a safe bet, though, that those numbers don’t move you nearly as much as watching paramedics load someone into an ambulance at a crash site.
If you have been driving awhile, you have witnessed the ambulance scenario. And those car accident statistics underscore the risk that you could become the person on that stretcher. What the numbers don’t show are the lifelong results of car accident injuries.
Medical care for a simple and fast-healing injury can be costly, but the long-term effects of car accident injuries can be debilitating and financially disastrous. After a serious car crash, it’s important to speak with the skilled St. Louis auto accident attorneys at The Bruning Law Firm to learn about your options for pursuing compensation. Schedule a free case consultation now.
Missouri Accident Injury Effects and Treatments
Although there are many scenarios that can result in a crash, victims often experience common injuries. For instance, blunt trauma or punctures from auto accidents are the most common cause of ruptured spleens. Broken and crushed bones are another common result of collisions. Here is a grim look at some of what can happen due to a crash:
Ruptured spleen: The older the victim, the greater the risk of death from this injury, but the overall mortality rate is low. Allowing the body to heal itself is the most common approach. Effects of a ruptured spleen can include internal bleeding, fainting and wooziness, blurred vision, confusion, and shock.
Treatment can range from monitoring in the hospital, with the possibility of blood transfusions, to removing the organ. The spleen is an important part of the body’s defense against infection, so removing it means a lifelong vulnerability to potentially life-threatening infection.
Broken bones: A car crash can leave you with crushed or shattered bones throughout the body that never fully heal. Treatment could include surgery for reconstruction using metal rods, plates, and screws. Recovery takes months, not days, and full recovery might not be possible. Lifelong pain, nerve or blood vessel damage, and arthritis are possibilities – as is death from blood loss, blood clots, or infection.
Back and spinal cord injuries: Car crashes are the most common cause of these life-altering injuries. The complexity, length, and effectiveness of care is determined by the severity of the injury or injuries. There is a high likelihood that physical and occupational therapy and vocational rehabilitation will be needed. Depending on the location and degree of the injury, partial or full paralysis is possible.
Strains, tears, and sprains of muscles, tendons, and ligaments are common facets of these wounds, and they, too, can mean expensive and lengthy, even lifelong, treatment.
Head and traumatic brain injuries (or TBI): The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says TBI complications can include “changes affecting thinking, sensation, language, or emotions.” In addition, this type of injury may not be immediately obvious.
These injuries vary greatly, and treatment is tailored to the individual. Care can run a gamut from physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech or language therapy to vocational therapy. The treatment can include the care of a physiatrist, family therapist, psychiatrist, and psychologist. Treatment can last a lifetime and is extremely costly.
Whiplash injury: This injury is one of the reasons you should seek medical care after any accident, even if you feel fine, because symptoms don’t always appear immediately after the crash. The condition can present itself cognitively through memory loss or trouble concentrating, even depression. Other symptoms include trouble sleeping, ringing in the ears, blurred vision, dizziness, numbness or tingling in the arms, headaches, and neck pain and stiffness.
The treatment regimen often means months of care that includes medication and physical therapy. Some people are afflicted with chronic neck pain and other long-term complications.
Burns: These can be disfiguring and extremely painful. Along with the pain and grisly external appearance of first-, second-, and third-degree burns, victims can suffer smoke and heat inhalation that jeopardizes the lungs and other organs. Carbon-monoxide poisoning and harm from inhaled toxins also are possible. There also is a potential for psychological damage caused by trauma and disfigurement.
Treatment can take months and involve lengthy hospitalization, complex infection prevention procedures, multiple skin grafts, and other surgeries. Patients also face a significant risk of death from infection, among other threats, during recuperation.
Sprains and strains: These soft-tissue injuries include whiplash and lower-back pain. Stressing or tearing of the tendons that connect muscle to bone and ligaments are sprains. When a muscle is stretched or torn, a strain occurs.
The symptoms of strains and sprains can, as with whiplash, be slow to present themselves. The pain can be chronic, with treatment that can feature ice packs, elevation of the injured area, painkillers, physical therapy, and even surgery.
Bruises and minor cuts: Even bruises and seemingly minor flesh wounds that so commonly result from collisions can be red flags signaling internal injuries. Lacerations might require stitches to minimize scarring and medication to prevent infection. Professional care is recommended to ensure the damage is limited.
The incredible forces at play in automobile accidents also result in the type of crushing injuries that lead to lost limbs and grisly lacerations and punctures. None of this is pleasant to contemplate, and living through it and then with it for a lifetime are inconceivable.
Let Us Help if You’ve Been Hurt in a St. Louis Car Crash
People in St. Louis and throughout Missouri who turn to The Bruning Law Firm for help with a car accident injury claim get the benefit of almost four decades of experience from a family-run and family-oriented firm. Tony Bruning and sons A.J. and Ryan are fierce litigators who are on their home turf in St. Louis, where they have built of legacy of fighting for people’s rights.
Contact us today for a free evaluation of your case, and let us fight for the financial compensation and justice you deserve.
Sources:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
