Traumatic brain injuries, otherwise known as TBIs, affect many people in California each year. TBIs are life-changing and often involve long recovery periods. Sometimes, people with TBIs never recover fully.
Though people get TBIs in a variety of ways, many come from motor vehicle accidents. Forceful impacts and whiplash, both of which cause TBIs, are typical in car crashes.
How car accidents injure the brain
While head impacts can easily cause brain damage, the head doesn’t need to collide with anything to experience a TBI. Whiplash happens when the body decelerates too quickly, which is a near-universal event during car crashes. An automobile halts almost instantly when hitting another vehicle or object. Your body, including your brain, is forced to follow suit, so your brain might hit against the inside of your skull or quickly move back and forth.
When you look at the damage cars sustain during crashes, you can understand why a brain would also sustain damage when it crashes against the skull’s interior. Bleeding and swelling are just two possibilities.
If your head does hit up against something, that can cause a TBI. For example, it’s common for people’s heads to hit windows or seats during accidents. Additionally, though airbags are literal lifesavers in many cases, they can also cause TBIs.
TBI symptoms
Even if a person walks away from a car crash feeling okay, they might have a TBI that doesn’t manifest until days later. Here are just a few potential symptoms:
- Headaches
- Sleep issues
- Dizziness
- Problems in cognition
TBIs can be devastating. If you’ve experienced a TBI resulting from a car accident, you might benefit from speaking to a personal injury attorney about your options for pursuing compensation for your losses.
