Common Injuries Resulting From Motorcycle Accidents

Motorcycle accident injuries can be bad, but just how bad?  Well, when a car collides with a motorcycle, the driver is usually wearing a seatbelt, which prevents the driver from being ejected from the vehicle.  Likewise, if the vehicle is moving at a high enough speed or the impact is strong enough, the airbags deploy, cushioning many parts of the driver’s body from the impact.  Furthermore, the motorcycle makes contact with some external part of the car, not with the driver or passengers inside.  On a motorcycle, you have none of those protections.  Motorcycles do not have seatbelts or airbags.  It’s just you against the road.  Your chances of survival and of escaping permanent injury are much better if you wear a helmet than if you do not, but you are probably still looking at a long recovery and costly treatment.  A South Carolina motorcycle accident lawyer can help you regroup financially after suffering serious injuries in a motorcycle accident.

Head Injuries and Concussions

If you got in a motorcycle accident when you were not wearing a helmet, you are lucky to be alive.  Even if you were wearing a helmet, you can still suffer a concussion or traumatic brain injury.   Concussion and traumatic brain injury are the same injury at varying degrees of severity, in fact, the medical term for a concussion is “mild traumatic brain injury.”  These injuries occur when someone hits their head hard on a solid object; motor vehicle accidents are one of the most common causes of concussions.

Concussions can cause chronic severe headaches, light sensitivity, dizziness, drowsiness, and blurred vision, and the symptoms can last for weeks or even months.  With more severe traumatic brain injuries, the symptom last even longer and can also include mood changes and memory loss.

Spinal Cord Injuries

Trauma to the neck or back, with or without bone fractures, can cause spinal cord injury.  If the injury is relatively mild, it can cause pain, intermittent numbness, or weakness in some or all parts of the body below the site of the injury.  Severe spinal cord injuries can cause paralysis (which parts of the body are paralyzed depends on the site of the injury) and loss of bladder or bowel control.  Medical researchers are constantly seeking to improve treatments for spinal cord injuries; for example, “exoskeletons” are an alternative to wheelchairs for some patients.  With current treatments, some patients with spinal cord injury have regained some use of previously paralyzed body parts, but usually only to the extent of being able to move one finger after being paralyzed from the neck down.  Spinal cord injuries are usually permanent and require a lifetime of treatment.

Contact Us Today for Professional Help

Prompt and ongoing treatment greatly affects the prognosis of spinal cord injuries.  Your Columbia motorcycle accident lawyer can help you pay for the treatment you need for the best possible outcomes.  Contact The Stanley Law Group for help with your case.

Resource:

cnn.com/2019/07/04/health/nerve-transfer-surgery-paralysis-australia-intl/index.html