Delayed Injuries After a Car Crash

When you’re involved in a car accident and you don’t see any immediate injuries, you feel an immense sense of relief – but that relief may not tell the whole story. The assumption that no pain means no injuries can be dangerous, since there are some injuries that don’t show up until several hours or days have passed. When pain finally emerges and victims have to seek medical care, they’re left feeling confused and unsure of what to do next.

After a car accident in Minnesota, it’s important to protect both your physical health and your legal rights. That’s why we always recommend seeking medical care and talking to a car accident attorney. Call Bradshaw & Bryant, PLLC today to set up a consultation with our team now.

Why some injuries take time to show up

There are several reasons that delayed injuries are so common. When your brain senses an immediate threat to your safety (such as a crash), it goes into fight-or-flight mode. This releases a massive wave of adrenaline into your body, which masks pain so you can escape the threat. This masked pain response can unintentionally leave you assuming that you’re uninjured, when your body actually just hasn’t let you feel it yet.

Some injuries are also slow to develop, so there’s no way to know that you’re hurt until you see a doctor. Soft tissue damage, disc herniations, and concussions often start minor and then slowly worsen over a period of several days. The same is true for brain injuries, which may start as a headache and slowly manifest as memory issues, irritability, and fatigue.

Common delayed-onset injuries after a collision

Some injuries are notoriously slow to develop. They include:

• Soft tissue injuries: Whiplash, muscle sprains, and muscle strains are very hard to detect right after an accident. People assume that some mild soreness is normal after an accident. They’re right, but this “mild soreness” may also be a sign of soft tissue damage. If left untreated, these injuries may result in chronic pain.
• Concussions and mild traumatic brain injuries: Concussions rarely knock you unconscious. Many people who do suffer concussions in an accident don’t even know it until they are still struggling with dizziness, memory problems, and sleep disturbances days after the accident. These symptoms are red flags that indicate a need for a medical evaluation.
• Back and spine injuries: The spine absorbs a massive amount of force during a car accident. Herniated discs, compressed nerves, and spine misalignment are all relatively common outcomes of car accidents. These injuries may show up hours or days later as numbness, tingling, sharp pain, or difficulty moving the legs.
• Internal injuries: These are some of the most serious delayed injuries you can experience. Organ damage and internal bleeding aren’t always immediately obvious, especially if the bleed or rupture is small. In these cases, the blood slowly builds up in the body. This doesn’t make it any less dangerous than a massive internal bleed or severe organ rupture. Left untreated, the outcome is often the same—death.
• Psychological trauma: Mental trauma takes time to make itself known after an accident. Of course, you’ll likely experience nightmares, difficulty sleeping, and general anxiety after an accident. However, those are normal short-term symptoms. When they don’t let up after weeks or months, that’s a sign that you may be facing some more serious mental trauma.

Why immediate medical care matters

The fact that delayed-onset injuries are so common is reason enough to seek immediate medical care. If you can’t immediately detect an injury, that doesn’t mean no one can—odds are still very good that your injuries will show up during diagnostic testing. When it comes to serious injuries, your prognosis is often partially dependent on how quickly you get diagnosed and how promptly you begin receiving treatment.

Not only is immediate medical care important for your health, it’s also important for your legal case. If you have a claim, either for your own PIP coverage or against the at-fault party, you’ll need to be able to prove your injuries. The sooner you get checked out after an accident, the easier it is to demonstrate that your injuries are a result of the accident. Should you wait days or weeks to see a doctor, that gives the insurance company space to question whether or not your injuries were really accident-related.

Legal considerations in Minnesota

Minnesota is a no-fault insurance state, which means that odds are good that your medical bills will ultimately be covered by your own insurance. But just because your benefits are coming from your own insurance company, that doesn’t mean that you get a blank check for the treatment you need. Your insurance company will limit your care to reasonable, necessary treatments that are related to your accident. Waiting too long to report an accident or get checked out by a doctor may cause your own insurance provider to question your reports and require further testing before they pay out your claims.

It’s important to report early for your PIP coverage, but you also need to report early to your insurance to fulfill the terms of your contract. If you look over your car insurance contract, there’s likely a clause requiring you to report your accident promptly and take necessary steps to get appropriate care.

Protect your rights after an accident with our team of car accident lawyers

With the team at Bradshaw & Bryant, you can focus on your recovery while we tackle the legal side of your car crash. Let’s discuss your options and next steps. Give us a call today or reach out online now.