Rear-End Collision Injuries

What You Should Know About Rear End Accidents

The U.S. sees around 1.7 million rear-end collisions every year, which makes them one of the most common types of automobile accidents. These accidents commonly result from a combination of factors, including one vehicle following too closely behind another, distract driving, speeding and slippery road conditions. Whatever the cause of another vehicle rear-ending yours, the result is often an injury that changes your life and inflicts significant physical, emotional, and financial pain.

In this blog post, we discuss the most common injuries that occur in rear-end collisions. To learn more about your rights after a rear-end collision leaves you or a loved one injured, contact an experienced auto accident injury attorney today.

Common Injuries

Motor vehicle accidents can inflict almost any type of injury. In rear-end collisions some injuries are more common than others. By writing about these injuries, we hope to educate people about the injuries they should watch out for in the moments, days, and weeks after a rear-end collision.

Immediately Obvious Injuries

• Broken bones: Sudden impacts can cause serious trauma to the underlying structure of your body. Heavy stress can cause bones to bend or bruise, but the intensity of a car accident can easily lead to breaks. A simple fracture may just be a separation of the bone, though a harder hit can lead to multiple fractures, shattered bones, or bones that pierce through the skin. These can lead to high costly surgeries, months away from work, and extensive therapy.
• Lacerations, contusions, and abrasions: A rear-end collision can cause either vehicle’s passengers to be thrown around the interior of a vehicle. Accident victims frequently sustain severe injuries that leave them battered and bleeding, and require immediate medical attention to help prevent blood loss, infection, and nerve damages.
• Spinal cord injury: The spinal cord contains a bundle of nerves that communicates brain signals to the body. It runs through the spinal column, which protects it. In a rear-end collision, the back can sustain trauma that causes damage not just to the bones of the spinal column, but to the nerves of the spinal cord itself. This damage can result in an immediate loss of sensation below the site of the injury (although that loss of feeling can also take time to develop). Seek medical help immediately if a rear-end collision leaves you with back pain, stiffness, headache, or a feeling of pressure in your neck or spine, as these could be signs potentially catastrophic injury.

Of course, these are just some of the types of injuries that may show symptoms after a rear-end accident. Always seek medical attention after a motor vehicle collision of any kind.

Less-Obvious Injuries

Not all rear-end accident injuries show themselves at the scene of the accident, however. Adrenaline can mask even the most serious internal injuries for hours, and some ailments take even longer to emerge. These conditions can be hard to recognize immediately because of their slow onset.

However, with appropriate testing, doctors can spot these injuries quickly, which is why you should always seek medical attention after a car accident, no matter whether or not you “feel” injured.

• Traumatic brain injury: Brain trauma can appear immediately after a wreck, or it might emerge over time. Brain injuries can involve a range of symptoms of varying intensity, including headaches, dizziness, nausea, confusion, motor difficulties, fatigue, and memory loss, to name just a few. Seizures, infections, and strokes can also accompany brain injuries.
• Neck and shoulder soft tissue injury: Severe tissue damage in the neck and shoulders can affect muscles, nerves, and tendons. The symptoms of injury to these soft tissues can include chronic headaches, lasting neck and shoulder stiffness, and pain or numbness in your extremities. This condition can take months of medication and therapy to correct.
• Internal bleeding: Internal bleeding is a real possibility in serious rear-end accidents, but there is often no external evidence of the injury in the immediate aftermath of the wreck. Damage to your organs can cause pain around your torso, though the location of the pain may not directly correspond with the site of the injury. Seek immediate medical attention if you experience chest pain, find it difficult to breathe, or start to cough up blood. When the problem becomes most serious, your blood pressure could drop, your pulse may speed up, or you could lose consciousness.

As above, we caution that these are just some of the injuries a person could sustain in a rear-end collision. Getting medical treatment is the only safe way to rule out injury after a car accident. Do not take the risk that an injury will not worsen just because you think you feel okay after a wreck. Not only will seeking immediate medical attention protect your health, it will also generate important records of your treatment that may prove useful in seeking compensation for your injuries.

Seek Legal Help for Rear-End Collision Injuries

Drivers and passengers in both vehicles can sustain severe injuries in a rear-end collision. If the accident resulted from someone’s careless or reckless conduct, then those injured will typically have the right to take legal action against the party at fault to recover compensation for their injuries.

To obtain the compensation they deserve, victims of rear-end accidents, no matter which car they were riding in, should seek the advice and counsel of an experienced motor vehicle accident injury attorney right away. Car accident victims sometimes make the mistake of thinking they have plenty of time to talk to a lawyer. In reality, their chances of obtaining maximum compensation often shrink with each day that passes without a lawyer investigating, negotiating, or litigating on their behalf.

Have you sustained injuries in a rear end car accident? If so, then contact an experienced car accident attorney as soon as possible to get a free case evaluation and to protect your rights.

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