You’ve probably seen the typical personal injury car accident attorney ad. They all have the same premise: the moments after your accident are integral to securing your future. It’s true because the window of physical evidence is relatively small, but what could be even more important than what happens at the scene is what happens when you see a doctor.
You might think you feel fine after your accident and maybe you feel like you just have some bumps and bruises, but there could be some serious underlying injuries only a medical professional can find. These injuries could cause some serious long-term problems and even disabilities if they’re not tended to properly.
We want to explore some of the injuries car accident victims often miss or even ignore and why you should seek medical care for all of them.
Soft-tissue injuries
These are some of the most common issues that spring up after an accident. They often feel like bruises or simple strains, but if you don’t seek treatment the problem could exacerbate over time. When this happens, you run the risk of turning relatively minor injuries into long-term problems.
Soft-tissue injuries in car accidents can include sprains, internal bruising, contusions, and even tears to your ligaments. If you’re familiar with sports, you’ll notice players often walk off under their own power after tearing a ligament in their knee. This is because the pain may not be immediately significant while the injury can actually be career-threatening. Failure to treat torn ligaments could result in disabilities down the road.
Herniated discs
Herniated discs are among the most dangerous injuries that can end up getting ignored after car accidents. A herniated disc occurs when the soft tissue between the bones in your vertebrae ruptures, causing the soft center to leak out. When this happens, your vertebrae may end up rubbing together and could even pinch or lean against a nerve. This nerve damage could leave you permanently disabled if not treated properly.
These can happen in both your lower and upper back areas during an accident. While these injuries sometimes show no symptoms at all, symptoms include:
- Numbness or tingling (caused by nerve damage)
- Pain in your extremities
- Shoulder pain
- Pain when you cough, sneeze or breathe deeply
If you feel any sort of back or neck pain after your accident you should seek medical care immediately. This is especially true if you feel back or neck pain that feels like it’s traveling to other parts of the body.
Timeline to seek care
Your window to make sure these injuries are covered in your Florida personal injury case is relatively small. You can’t litigate your case and then decades later realize you developed a disability from your accident and circle back on it.
In Florida car accident cases, you have 14 days to seek treatment and diagnosis. If you fail to seek any form of treatment in that timeline, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get your injuries covered in your personal injury case. However, if you begin treatment and over the course of treatment, you’re determined to have suffered a more severe injury than initially diagnosed you should still be covered by insurance. The 14-day window is generally for starting treatment as opposed to finalizing treatment.
Failure to seek treatment also puts future cases at risk. If you’re in a car accident down the line and a doctor determines you suffered injuries long ago in another accident, you may have trouble getting compensation in future incidents, as well. Insurance companies may claim it’s hard to discern when injuries happened if older injuries were never treated.
At Alvarez Law Group, we know Florida personal injury and car accident cases. The roads in Florida can feel like a danger zone with accidents around every corner, so you need to know who to call when you get hurt in a crash. We’re a small firm that gets big results for our clients. Call our offices today to get your case done right.
Alvarez Law Group
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