A description of different vehicle accidents reveals the varied nature of such incidents. Due to their varied nature, they create a long list of various accident-related injuries. Still, some of those injuries show-up more frequently than others.
Factors that can affect the nature of an accident-related injury:
• Was the victim wearing a seat belt?
• Was the victim in a vehicle with a functioning set of air bags?
• What was the victim’s position in the impacted vehicle at the time of the collision?
• What was the speed of the colliding vehicles?
There are 2 general types of injuries: Penetrating and Impact.
The most common impact injuries:
Broken ribs: Can result when a driver’s chest gets thrown against the steering wheel.
Harm to soft tissue: What can happen if a muscle, ligament or tendon gets injured. Certain movements become painful. A side impact tends to affect the soft tissues in the arms and legs, as well as the joints in those same limbs.
Strain on the back muscles: Another injury that causes pain, when the affected soft tissue gets moved.
Closed head injury: Results when brain moves inside of skull and hits a part of the skull. The brain might also hit other structures inside the skull, such as the ear canal. If the ear canal happens to hold an infection, that infection can affect the brain.
Common penetrating injuries
Cuts and scrapes: Caused by the movements of a projectile. That projectile could be a piece of broken glass, or it could be some item that had not been secured to a part of the vehicle’s interior. Even if the vehicle’s glass was shatterproof, the occupants might be carrying a mirror, one that could get lose, and act as a projectile.
Possible projectiles (other than a piece of broken glass): cell phones, pamphlets, pencils, pens, keys, plastic utensils, sunglasses, beverage cups or mugs, containers that held take-out food, snack food, such as hard candies, headphones, a pocketbook, a briefcase, a closed backpack, or books from an open backpack.
The number of possible projectiles could increase, if the occupants of the vehicle had chosen to leave a pocketbook or briefcase open, rather than closed. Image what might happen if a floating stapler made contact with the face of an occupant.
These penetrations of the skin are usually more obvious than harm to the soft tissues. It helps to document such an injury with a camera.
A projectile could cause a bruise, instead of a cut or scrape. It helps to keep a record of just how that bruise has impeded the movement of the affected body part. Did it cause pain, and if so, for how long did that painful sensation last?
