Some Injuries Can be Slow To Develop
Let’s say that you get into an accident. You feel a little funny, but overall, you feel fine. Maybe you even agree to go to the emergency room, and they find nothing. You go home, assuming that you came out of the accident uninjured.
You May Actually be Injured
But not so fast. The way that you feel immediately after an accident, is not necessarily a reflection of how injured that you actually are. In many cases, our bodies can sustain injuries that don’t hurt until hours after the actual accident.
Brain Injuries
One injury that can be slow to develop, and which may not even show any symptoms immediately, is with a brain injury. Brain injuries can be serious and deadly–and immediately after an accident, can even be quite painless. Brain bleeds can be so small, and so slow, that they may not even appear on scans that are taken in emergency rooms right after accidents.
What you don’t realize, if you have a brain bleed, is that as the bleed grows over minutes or hours, the blood accumulates in the skull, putting pressure on the brain. That pressure can injure and eventually, can be deadly.
Ligaments and Tendons
Another area of the body where pain can be slow to show up, is with injuries to ligaments or tendons. Sometimes the pain is immediate, but with smaller tears, the pain may not be apparent at first. The same is true of sprains or strains in the neck and back area, where the tendons or ligaments in the spinal column can swell up over a course of hours.
If there is a tear to a ligament or tendon which you don’t feel immediately, the tear can get worse as you aren’t resting it, not feeling any pain at first. The next day, you wake up in an awful lot of serious pain.
Internal Bleeding
Internal bleeds, like brain bleeds can also be slow, painless at first, and eventually, if untreated, deadly. A bleed may be so small that it is undetected and painless. But as the blood slowly fills the body cavity, the pain starts to get much more serious. Victims who don’t get medical treatment can have dire, and possibly fatal results.
In the ER
Remember that emergency room services often aren’t equipped to diagnose many of the slower developing injuries that people suffer.
For example, the X-ray that you receive in an ER, will detect broken bones, but in most cases, there is no MRFI conducted. That means that ligament or tendon tears, or sprains or strains to the neck area, may not be detected.
The emergency room is a quick, immediate triage of your medical condition. Not a long term monitoring of your condition. In many cases, people’s conditions deteriorate once they get home, or even the morning after an accident.
Get help for your injuries after an accident, and then get legal help. Call the West Palm Beach personal injury attorneys at Pike & Lustig today.
Sources:
healthline.com/health/internal-bleeding
my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/10265-back-strains-and-sprains
