Never be too quick to say you aren’t injured, because stress and adrenaline can mask something serious!
The aftermath of a car accident tends to cause seriously high levels of stress, while raising your adrenaline. These two factors have the ability to mask any sort of serious injury that you may have sustained.
Now, if you have an obvious and in plain view injury that looks pretty serious, make sure that you allow police and emergency services, or EMS, to evaluate you. That injury could lead to something even deeper and more serious than you originally thought. If EMS suggests the hospital, you should go. However, if they don’t, it is still wise to see your primary care physician anyways to have them check you out. 
See, getting immediate medical treatment not only ensures that your health is protected, but it also creates a medical record to make sure that your claim has substantial backing and value.
And of course, in the days following the incident, be sure that you keep an eye out for any signs or symptoms that could be related to your injury. It can take anywhere from hours to days for anything to significantly present itself.
The Most Common Injury Type
Head Injuries
Whiplash, or a neck strain as it’s medically known as, is caused when your head snaps forward or backward. Symptoms of whiplash include neck pain or stiffness, any sort of dizziness, shoulder pain, and any sort of numbness in your hands or arms.
Concussions are a severe injury caused by a significant amount of head trauma. When it comes to a car accident, this occurs when the victim’s head hits the steering wheel or a window. The sudden impact causes your brain to ricochet off of your skull and then swell. If you experience any symptoms like confusion, slurred speech, headache, light sensitivity, nausea or vomiting, or any combination of those, call your doctor immediately.
Back Injuries
A very common injury type caused by a car accident would be a herniated disk. This occurs when the disk between two spinal vertebrae is knocked out of place, pinching or just making contact with the surrounding nerves. If you have any sort of pain radiating down your hip or leg after an accident, there is a chance that you have a herniated disk and need to see a doctor as soon as possible.
Any sort of spinal cord injury is really common in an auto accident. Each year, 40% of all spinal cord injuries is caused by a motor vehicle accident. Now, the symptoms vary depending on the location of the injury on the spine, however, it is very painful and can lead to difficulty moving, standing, or breathing and muscle spasms.
Foot and Leg Injuries
Most of the time these occur primarily in front-end collisions. When it comes to car accidents that have the airbag deploy, the airbag only really protects the upper body, leaving your lower body exposed. In a car accident, a lot of times your knees and ankles end up slamming into the door or the steering column. This can lead to bruises, sprains, and even broken bones.
Internal Injuries
When you're thrown around your driver's seat after a vehicle accident, your body suffers from a lot of trauma. You being restricted by your seatbelt, your hitting hard aspects of the vehicle like the door and steering wheel, and potentially the airbag deployed. All of this can cause damage to you internally.
You want to seek help immediately at the scene or following the accident. If you are suffering any abdominal pain, difficulty breathing, large areas of bruising, headaches or dizziness, swelling, loss of consciousness, or any other symptom potentially caused by internal bleeding, contact your doctor or EMS immediately.
Emotional Distress
A lot of time with car accidents, we focus primarily on the physical aspect of it. They can be catastrophic to the body. However, that doesn’t even come close to the emotional damage that a car accident can cause.
PTSD, anxiety, depression, and sleep issues are just a few possibilities in terms of the emotional aftermath of being in a car accident. If you are suffering from anything like this, you want to be sure that you see a doctor, psychologist, or counselor immediately.
Contact Our Philadelphia Car Accident Lawyers Today To Get Help
If you are suffering any sort of repercussions due to a vehicle accident, it would behoove you to contact an attorney like myself. Because for over 30 years, I have dedicated myself to keeping you safe in the city of Philadelphia. So if you think you have a personal injury claim or were involved in a car accident, give my office a call at 215-332-0300 or schedule a free consultation below!