Surviving a car accident, even one that is relatively minor, may leave you with a false sense of security, especially if you believe at first that you did not receive any injuries in the accident. While this is possible, there are many injuries you may receive in a car accident that do not cause pain at first, but still may pose serious threats to your health.
Even if you believe that you are perfectly fine, it is always wise to seek out a thorough professional medical examination to make sure that you do not have any of these delayed onset injuries. In some cases, you may steer clear of some serious complications and long-term suffering by identifying and diagnosing an injury before it causes pain. In other instances, such an examination may save your life.
Life threatening injuries
Abdominal injuries suffered during a car accident can grow into fatal injuries quickly. If you experience a car accident and then begin to feel pain in your abdomen, you should seek out medial care as soon as you possibly can. Waiting a matter of hours may be too long, in some cases.
Should internal bleeding be the cause of the pain, then it is possible that the site of the bleeding is now infected. This is very dangerous, because the infection can easily spread throughout the body and infect your organs and even your brain. Once the infection spreads sufficiently, it is difficult for the body to fight it.
If your accident caused damage to your internal organs, this damage may not cause pain initially. Unfortunately, if any of the damaged organs fail, the pain may practically paralyze you. Organ failure is difficult to reverse, and if a failed organ does not receive proper medical treatment quickly enough, it may provide a relatively slow, painful death.
Whiplash, head injuries and spinal injuries
If you receive injuries that are not in your abdomen, you are lucky, but still may face serious issues if your injuries go undiagnosed and untreated for too long. Other common delayed pain injuries may occur in the head, neck and back, and may require specific treatment to address.
Head injuries may lead to some for of brain damage, even if you only receive a small blow to the head. A small brain injury may not cause any noticeable pain, but can cloud your thinking severely, and even change your personality or make communicating and concentrating difficult for months after the injury occurs.
If your suffer injuries to the muscles in your neck, back and torso, you may experience whiplash. Whiplash occurs when muscles experience trauma, which may not cause pain for a few hours. Commonly, a victim may receive an injury and then wake up the next morning unable to move because of the pain. Likewise, injures to the spinal cord are not always immediately painful, but may present numbness, tingling or sharp and radiating pain from pinched nerves.
If you do experience delayed onset injuries, be sure that you carefully examine all the legal tools you have to protect your rights and seek fair compensation for your medical expenses and suffering from the party liable for the accident.
