If you experience a car accident and walk away without serious pain or obvious injuries, you may think that you caught a lucky break and only suffered some property damage or had your schedule inconveniently disturbed. Unfortunately, you may have very serious injuries and not know it yet. In some instances, these delayed injuries can even turn fatal.
Following any kind of car accident, except for truly minor fender-benders, it is always important to undergo a complete medical examination from your doctor. If you do have any delayed pain injuries, a full medical examination can help identify them and get you on a treatment regimen before you suffer long-term damage or potentially risk your life.
Potentially deadly injuries
While serious whiplash, spinal damage and blows to the head may all result in delayed pain injuries, these are not typically deadly, even if they are very painful eventually. However, if you experience internal bleeding or suffer damage to your organs, you may not feel pain at all until it is too late.
Internal bleeding is potentially fatal in two ways. First, the human body simply cannot function for very long at all if it loses too much blood. Just like an accident victim with a serious visible wound may bleed too much externally, too much blood loss from an internal injury is similarly dangerous. In some cases, you may not even realize you’re bleeding internally until you lose consciousness, so assuming you do not have injuries after an accident is unwise.
Internal bleeding that is relatively minor still leaves the site of the bleeding vulnerable to infection. If an infection builds up at the site, it can quickly spread through the circulatory system to other parts of the body, causing sepsis.
Organ failure is also potentially deadly, and very painful. An organ that suffers damage does not typically shut down right away, but instead attempts to repair itself. If an organ succeeds in repairing the damage, then the victim may never feel the injury at all, but if it can’t repair the damage, then it will shut down.
When one organ shuts down, the rest follow like dominos. Needless to say, organ failure is among the most painful experiences after an accident.
Protecting yourself during recovery
If you do suffer any injuries in a car accident, make sure that you understand how to pursue compensation once you receive proper medical attention. Recovering from these injuries takes time and money, and you should not have to worry about these pressures, especially if some other party is liable for the accident.
