Any car accident—even a minor fender-bender—can leave you with lasting pain. And the most serious collisions can turn your life upside down. But if you know the most common car accident injuries, you can seek out the appropriate medical care for yourself, and even look into legal action if necessary.
What Are Traumatic Brain Injuries and How Do They Develop?
When your head hits a window or the steering wheel in an accident, your brain can slam against the inside of your skull. Tragically, these sorts of injuries cause almost 70% of all road traffic collision fatalities.
In the immediate aftermath, you may experience a headache or confusion, but more serious traumatic brain injuries can cause memory loss, mood swings, and even long-term cognitive issues.
Why Is Whiplash More Than Just a Sore Neck?
Whiplash occurs when your head snaps forward and back, which strains the muscles, ligaments, and tendons in your neck. According to the data, cervical whiplash injuries affect up to 83% of patients involved in collisions.
Untreated whiplash can lead to chronic pain, headaches, and reduced range of motion that interferes with your daily life.
How Do Spinal Cord Injuries Impact Daily Living?
Motor vehicle collisions account for almost 40% of new spinal cord injuries each year, and even a partial tear to the spinal cord can disrupt the nerve signals between your brain and body. Depending on the injury level, you might face weakness, numbness, or paralysis, requiring months of physical therapy and specialized care.
What Makes Broken Bones So Complicated After a Crash?
If you sustain a fracture in your weight-bearing bones—like the femur, pelvis, or spinal vertebrae—you will likely need surgery, metal hardware, and lengthy rehabilitation. In total, motor vehicle accidents account for 37% of all fractures that result from severe trauma.
Why Are Internal Injuries Especially Dangerous?
You may leave the crash scene believing that you escaped without injury, only to develop internal bleeding hours or days later. In fact, intra-abdominal organ injuries develop in 3.2% of all traffic accident patients, including urinary system injuries, hepatobiliary system issues, and spleen damage.
Some patients do not even realize that they suffered lacerations to organs like the liver, spleen, and kidneys until they start dealing with serious symptoms—like dizziness, abdominal pain, or rapid heart rate.
How Do Soft Tissue Injuries Affect Recovery?
While damage to the muscles, ligaments, and tendons may not show on X-rays, it can cause persistent pain and weakness. The sudden trauma sustained during a car accident can easily result in torn rotator cuffs or strained back muscles, which often require physical therapy, injections, or even surgery.
What Should You Know About Facial and Dental Trauma?
Any impact to the face, especially during an unexpected car collision, can fracture your jawbones, shatter your cheekbones, or knock out your teeth. Many drivers and passengers have suffered damage to their nose, mandible, orbit, and maxilla during a collision, which usually results in costly dental reconstruction and even long-term jaw joint disorders.
Can Car Accidents Cause Emotional Trauma?
Accident survivors report substantial rates of PTSD at 32.3% and depression at 17.4%, and even those survivors who do not can suffer from nightmares, flashbacks, and avoidance behaviors that affect their relationships and work.
Get Help With Common Car Accident Injuries at Valley Injury Team
With combined decades of experience, our attorneys have recovered millions for injured clients. We handle every case with a personal touch, treating you like family from our Mesa, AZ, headquarters.
If you or a loved one has endured any of these common car accident injuries, don’t wait. Call Valley Injury Team or fill out our online form for a free consultation. Our office location in Mesa allows us to serve Mesa, Gilbert, Tempe, Chandler, Scottsdale, Queen Creek, and all of Maricopa County.
