Head injuries are bound to leave you scratching your head, and for many more reasons than one. How do you recover from such a traumatic incident, and how do you hold the negligible people who caused it accountable?
Brain injuries are troubling, though not uncommon, public health problems. According to the brain injury statistics:
- 2.8 million Americans sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI) every year
- Over 56,000 people per year die from TBI injuries
- Every 21 seconds in the United States, someone suffers a TBI
These head injuries can come in many forms and happen for many different reasons, many of which are driven by other people’s negligence. And unfortunately, that negligence can manifest itself in a wide range of different ways, including:
- Slips and falls
- Motor vehicle accidents
- Sport injuries
- Falling objects
- Deliberate Violence
If you or a loved one suffered at the behest of such negligence, you won’t want to let that negligence go unpunished, unaccounted for, or unjustly scot-free. You should recompense your losses and seek the justice you deserve with the help of an experienced, trusted, and reliable San Francisco TBI lawyer.
Read on to understand the causes of head injuries and why you shouldn’t litigate resulting claims alone.
Mild Head Injury
Concussions, or mild head injuries, are unlikely to kill you. Nevertheless, they can still pose deadly, damaging, and extremely detrimental repercussions for one’s quality of life, especially for those who suffer more than one. Experts, like those at The Concussion Foundation, have linked repeated head trauma to CTE and other neurodegenerative disorders.
Concussions can happen through any traumatic blow to the head, and those blows are commonly incurred in athletics. High-contact sports players have to contend with high risks for a head injury, risks which the University Of Pittsburgh has cataloged as:
- 1.7 to 3 million sports-related concussions per year
- 2 in 10 high school athletes suffering concussions per year
- 5 in 10 concussions going totally unreported per year
- 300,000+ football concussions per year
If you experience any of the following symptoms, seek immediate medical care and consider being examined for a concussion injury:
- Brief loss of consciousness
- Slurred speech
- Blurred vision
- Persistent head discomfort
- Dizziness and nausea
- Amnesia and confusion
Traumatic Brain Injury
A ubiquitous, though harmful injury nevertheless, TBIs affect millions of Americans per year. Although the CDC ranks firearm-related suicides as the most common cause of TBI fatalities, the org has ranked motor vehicle crashes and falls as among the most common causes of unintentional traumatic brain injury.
In fact, the CDC attributes fall to causing roughly half of all TBI hospitalizations. Many factors can cause falls, and many of them can be attributed to a negligent party’s liability. Common premises liability lawsuits pertaining to fall injuries may involve:
- Exposed electrical wiring
- Open cabinets
- Cluttered, wet, or poorly lit floors
- Icy unpaved sidewalks
- Potholes
- Uneven steps or flooring
If any one of the above led to your TBI injury, then you may want to consider seeking guidance from a San Francisco TBI lawyer.
Hematoma
A hematoma is defined as a collection of blood outside the veins or, in other words, outside of where your blood should be flowing. Hematomas can occur anywhere from any injury to the body but can be especially serious if they occur around the brain.
Outside bruising, a brain hematoma may become apparent if you experience the following symptoms:
- Persistent headaches
- Confusion and nausea
- Persistent vomiting
- Slurred speech
- Weakness in one side of the body
- Difficulty walking
- Memory loss and personality changes
These symptoms may become apparent immediately after the accident that caused them or months or weeks after the initial incident. Regardless, you should seek prompt medical attention as soon as these symptoms appear, as they can regress into even worse aftereffects like paralysis, coma, and potentially, death.
Edema
Cerebral edemas refer to sudden buildups of fluid around the brain. Swelling occurs as a natural part of the body’s response to injury but can be particularly problematic when it occurs around the brain.
Severe cerebral edema can restrict very important blood flow to the brain, which in turn will restrict the flow of oxygen to the brain. In turn, this can damage or kill brain cells if left untreated, which can arouse deadly, potentially irreversible damage.
Drug or temperature therapy may be used to treat cerebral edema, as well as surgical treatment if the swelling is serious enough to warrant it. Symptoms will be extremely reminiscent of cerebral hematomas but characterized by additional swelling and bruising.
As with all of the other head injuries on the list, consider seeking urgent medical attention if you’ve suffered one of them, and consider seeking prompt legal counsel if someone else’s negligence led to your cerebral edema injury.
Skull Fracture
Besides standard TBI injuries, skull fractures are among the deadliest head injuries one can risk suffering. As the name implies, skull fractures entail any break in the cranial bone, AKA the skull. The severity and location of the fracture can lead to different types of skull fractures, such as:
- Closed (or Simple) Fractures: These occur when the skin around the fractured area isn’t broken.
- Open Fractures: These occur when the skin around the fractured area is cut open and the bone visibly emerges.
- Depressed Fractures: These occur when the skull indents or caves into the brain cavity.
- Basal Fractures: These occur around the “floor” of the skull, meaning the face or the back of the head.
Fractures may occur in a straight line or across multiple disordered lines. It may be difficult to determine whether or not you suffered a skull fracture, especially if there is no open wound present. However, all of the following symptoms could be present in the event of a fracture:
- Bruising and bleeding around the trauma site, eyes, ears, or nose
- Severe pain, swelling, and redness around the trauma site
- Excess fatigue, drowsiness, and restlessness
- Nausea, vomiting, and blurred vision
- Stiff neck, disorientation, and loss of balance
If you have a difficult, hard-to-pinpoint, closed fracture, a medical professional can still diagnose it with X-Ray, CT, or MRI imaging. We strongly urge that you seek a medical professional’s assistance immediately, as well as a legal professional’s assistance if negligence led to your skull fracture.
Choose the Right San Francisco TBI Lawyer For Your Injury Settlement
For over 60 years, our firm has proudly helped Bay Area residents overcome the hardest, dire, and most serious obstacles burdening their lives. Head trauma and brain injury can certainly be one of those obstacles.
If you or someone you know sustained a serious head injury following someone else’s negligence, then contact our San Francisco TBI lawyers at the Cartwright Law Firm to find out if they can help your legal case.
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