Every year, almost three million people suffer injuries in car accidents across the United States. Thankfully, many of these injuries are not serious. However, even an injury you may think of as “minor” can still lead to considerable medical expenses and disruption in your life. More serious injuries can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars of damages. When car accident injuries go beyond cuts and bruises, you can face many significant financial impacts. Here are some common serious injuries that car accident victims will suffer in a crash.

If you or a loved one have suffered any of these injuries, you may be entitled to substantial financial compensation, and you should contact an experienced car accident attorney.

Internal Injuries

Even though you cannot see an internal injury, it is no less dangerous. It can further threaten your health because it can go untreated for a long time while the injury worsens. You may not begin to notice that something is wrong until days or weeks after the accident.

When you examine yourself after an accident, you may not notice an internal injury. You might feel some pain, but it may not be an indication that something is very wrong. The extent of the injury will only be apparent from an X-ray, a CT scan, or an MRI.

Internal injuries happen as a result of the trauma of the accident. One of the most common causes of internal injuries is the seatbelt. While this device may save your life and keep you from suffering more serious harm, it can cause internal abdominal injuries.

Here are some common examples of internal injuries that car accident victims suffer:

• Ruptured spleen
• Collapsed lung
• Broken ribs
• Internal bleeding

These injuries may not heal on their own without medical treatment. Continued and sustained internal bleeding can even be life-threatening. Therefore, it is essential to get medically checked out after a car accident when your body has suffered trauma. The last thing you want is an unseen and “silent” car accident injury to worsen without medical treatment.

Soft Tissue Injuries

Soft tissue injuries affect the soft areas of the body, including the:

• Ligaments
• Tendons
• Muscles

The force of the car accident can twist or jolt the victim’s body, resulting in:

• Sprains – A stretching or tearing of the ligaments
• Contusions – Serious bruises (which can endanger victims if they bruise vital organs)
• Strains – An injury to a muscle or tendon that results from overuse

While these injuries are not as serious as some of the others described here, they may still cause significant short-term discomfort and impact on the car accident victim. For example, someone who suffers a torn ligament in their knee may need reconstructive surgery that can put them off their feet for months.

Contusions can also cause serious injury because they can cause structural damage to the affected part of the body. A brain contusion is an even more serious injury than a concussion.

Broken Bones

A car accident will cause trauma to your body. Even if you are wearing a seatbelt, the force of the crash can impact your bones. Often, the driver’s legs will hit against the door or the steering wheel, causing a broken fibula or tibia.

The most common type of fracture after a car is a broken pelvis.

After that, car accident victims may suffer fractured:

• Vertebrae
• Skull
• Arms
• Clavicle
• Ribs

Vertebrae fractures are very dangerous because they can cause a spinal cord injury. Skull fractures can lead to traumatic brain injuries. Finally, broken ribs can cause punctured lungs or other internal injuries.

Car accident victims often need surgery to set the bone and repair the damage. They may also need a lengthy rehabilitation process with physical therapy. Some accident victims are never the same again because the bone will never fully heal.

Organ Damage

Organ damage is perhaps the most serious internal injury from a car accident. The trauma of contact with the seatbelt, airbag, or steering wheel can cause abdominal injuries. One of the most common types of organ injuries from a car accident is damage to the kidneys. These are relatively large organs that can suffer physical damage and keep them from properly functioning.

In addition to a kidney laceration, the liver is the other large internal organ that can suffer serious damage in a car accident. This organ performs essential functions, and the failure to promptly treat the injury can cause permanent damage or even be fatal.

Neck and Back Injuries

Neck and back injuries are among the most common that accident victims will suffer. Perhaps the most common car accident injury is whiplash. This type of injury usually happens in a rear-end car crash. The front car driver’s head and neck may snap forward from the force of the accident while the rest of their body remains relatively still, causing damage to their neck and back.

Here are some other common neck and back injuries from a car accident:

• Lumbar sprains
• Lumbar spine injuries
• Spinal stenosis
• Disc herniation
• Thoracic spine injuries
• Facet joint injuries

Car accident back injuries can be debilitating. You may not even notice the pain right away because of the adrenaline from the car accident. The discomfort can show up days or weeks later and get progressively worse. If you even suspect a back or neck injury, seek immediate medical attention.

You must treat your injuries. If you do not see a doctor and follow their treatment plan, the insurance company may accuse you of worsening your injuries. Alternatively, they may argue that your back condition came from something else besides your car accident.

Even if your car accident aggravated a pre-existing back injury, the driver must still pay your damages because the rule in a personal injury case is that “you take your victim as you find them.”

Traumatic Brain Injuries

According to the Centers for Disease Control, you might sustain mild, moderate, or severe brain injuries. These categories only describe the initial presentation of symptoms—even a so-called mild TBI can result in lifelong disabilities and thousands of dollars of expenses.

Any trauma to the head can result in a brain injury. The severity of a brain injury can range from a concussion to permanent damage that can rob you of vital functions you need to perform in your daily life. Simply stated, there is no such thing as a minor brain injury because of the danger involved.

When you have suffered a brain injury, your life may forever change. Most likely, it will jeopardize your ability to work – if you can even work again. You will need to undergo extensive rehabilitation to either learn to regain some function or how to adjust to your permanent brain injury.

If you have had any trauma to your head and neck from a car accident, you should get checked out medically to rule out the possibility of a TBI. Going too long without treating your injury can make it far worse.

Spinal Cord Injuries

The force of a car accident can damage the vertebrae. Depending on the force and what happens to the vertebrae, the accident victim can suffer damage to the spinal cord. For example, the broken vertebrae can cause trauma that might either compress or sever the spinal cord. When that happens, the brain cannot send completed messages to the body’s extremities for them to move, costing the accident victim partial or full motion in the affected areas.

SCIs are among the most severe injuries someone can suffer in an accident. SCIs can either be complete or incomplete. A complete SCI is more serious, often resulting in a total loss of function below the affected area. An incomplete SCI, while still serious, offers the victim more hope for some recovery because they will still maintain some level of function below the area of the injury.

SCIs can also result in quadriplegia (the loss of use of all four limbs) or tetraplegia (the loss of use of two limbs). Quadriplegia is the more extensive SCI.

Patients will suffer significant physical and financial impacts from an SCI. The most serious forms of an SCI will have lifetime treatment costs that exceed $5 million. That figure does not even include lost wages or the extensive pain and suffering that goes along with an SCI.

You Must Receive Full Payment for Your Car Accident Injuries

No matter what injury you have suffered in a car accident, you are entitled to full financial compensation for everything that you have suffered. The second that a driver was negligent and caused your injuries, they assume a legal obligation to you to pay for what they did. It does not matter how much your damages were – they should pay them in full.

At this point, their car insurance will take over and defend them in any lawsuit. Your first step may be to file a claim with their insurance company if you do not want to go through the court process. If you do file a lawsuit, the insurance company will be the one defending the case.

The insurance company will be obligated to pay for damages up to the policy limit if the driver is at fault. If your damages exceed that amount, the driver must pay for them from their own assets (although a personal injury lawyer will tell you that collecting on such a judgment is not always easy).

Even though the insurance company has a legal obligation to pay, it does not mean they will always pay you what they owe. For each claim presented to them, the insurance company tries to save everything they can by paying less than it is worth. According to their business model, the insurance company charges customers premiums based on their estimate of the actual damages that their policyholders will cause.

Then, they try to settle those claims for pennies on the dollar. Then, you become a victim of two things; car accident negligence from another driver and insurance company overreach that costs you money. When you have suffered extensive injuries, settling your case for too little will cause you and your family extensive stress and burden in the long term.

A Car Accident Lawyer Can Help You

An experienced attorney will help you by knowing how to value your claim before presenting it to the insurance company. Then, they will negotiate with the insurance company to get enough compensation to fully cover all your car accident injuries. If the insurance company does not pay you what you deserve, you can bring your case to the jury, and they will award damages.

The best step you can take to protect yourself after a car accident injury is to find the right legal representation immediately. Contact a car accident attorney as soon as possible.