Car Crash May Lead To Serious Brain Injury
As you drive to town one morning, your brain mulls over all of the tasks you have planned for your seemingly ordinary day. Little do you know, however, that this same brain will soon take a hit — literally — in a motor vehicle crash resulting from a negligent driver.
Brain injuries are serious, with the potential to lead to lifelong complications. If you are involved in a car crash in Mississippi that causes you to suffer a traumatic brain injury, you have the right to seek to hold accountable the at-fault party through the civil court system.
Brain injuries
Each year in the United States, about 1.7 million emergency room visits, hospitalizations and deaths related to traumatic brain injury occur. You do not have to be traveling speedily or hit a hard object to suffer this type of injury. Any type of trauma affecting the neck or head region can actually cause your brain to swell, tear, bruise or bleed. Symptoms of these types of injuries include confusion, dizziness and nausea, a severe headache and even unusual sluggishness or tiredness.
Types of brain injuries
Two types of brain injuries exist: open and closed. You have suffered an open injury if you have fractured your skull, which may occur if your skull ends up making direct contact with an object or surface that is hard. Meanwhile, you have suffered a closed injury if the injury does not involve a fracture.
Closed injuries, however, may actually be more serious than open ones as a result of the potential for brain swelling as well as the formation of blood clots in the skull. Serious open and closed injuries may lead to the loss of consciousness, paralysis or death.
What to do
If you have suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car crash as a result of a careless driver, you may opt to file a personal injury claim against the driver, seeking damages. A preponderance of the evidence is required to establish liability in civil court in Mississippi. No amount of monetary damages in a successfully fought claim can undo the events leading to a brain injury. However, financial damages may help with addressing ongoing medical costs and other expenses stemming from such an injury.
