The most common car accident injuries are soft-tissue injuries which often occur to the neck, back, shoulders, knees, ankles, and wrists, but can happen to any part of the body that sustains trauma. The body’s soft tissue includes the skin, fat, connective tissue, tendons, muscles, ligaments, and blood vessels. In an accident, the crash force of the collision propels the body forward at the speed the car was traveling until the seatbelt halts the forward momentum and snaps the motorist back against the seat cushion. Even while preventing death, the seatbelt itself causes soft-tissue injuries to the motorist at the same time that the collapsing structure of the vehicle may cause further injury.
What Types of Soft-Tissue Injuries Occur in Car Accidents?
In serious car accidents, motorists may suffer multiple injuries. Often, their injuries include one or more of the following soft-tissue injuries commonly seen in car accident claims:
- Whiplash: this injury occurs to the neck when the force of a crash causes the rapid back-and-forth motion of the head, stretching and over-extending the muscles, ligaments, and tendons in the neck.
- Sprains: ligaments are bands of connective tissue inside the body. An accident may cause ligaments to stretch and tear, resulting in a sprain.
- Strains: strains also involve stretching and tearing, but a strain involves damage to tendons rather than ligaments. Because tendons are more vascular than ligaments, a strain typically heals faster than a sprain.
- Contusions: these are bruises and may occur over a wide portion of the body during a serious car accident or only in key places, such as along the seatbelt line. Bruising is caused by soft tissue damage that causes bleeding from tiny vessels under the skin. They typically fade and heal within one to two weeks.
- Cerebral contusions: when bruising occurs inside the skull or brain, it can cause damage and cell death in the sensitive nerve fibers that control bodily functions.
- Lacerations: these are cuts and gashes that occur on the body due to broken glass, sharp structures, and projectiles inside the vehicle during the crash. Lacerations can be severe when they penetrate through the skin layers and damage the soft tissue, including blood vessels.
- Torn ACL, or MCL: these major ligaments in the knee are susceptible to serious injuries in car accidents, often causing debilitating pain and temporary mobility problems.
The term “soft tissue injury” refers to any car accident injury that doesn’t involve bone, including internal organ damage.
How Long Does It Take for Soft-Tissue Injuries to Heal?
Doctors use a grading system to categorize soft-tissue injuries by their severity and the length of time required to heal.
Grade-1 Soft-Tissue Injuries:
These are the mildest soft-tissue injuries, with damage to under 10% of the involved muscle, tendon, ligament, or other body part. For most people, recovery takes only a few days or up to a week.
Grade-2 Soft-Tissue Injuries:
These are moderate soft-tissue injuries with damage covering 10 to 90% of the structure. Healing takes two to four weeks but may take longer depending on the severity of the grade-2 injury and the overall health of the injury victim.
Grade-3 Soft-Tissue Injuries:
These are the most severe soft-tissue injuries and indicate a complete tear, rupture, or severing of the involved tissue. Grade-3 soft-tissue injuries often require surgery and may take months to heal. Although painful when they occur, they typically don’t cause as much pain as lower-grade injuries due to complete severing rather than stretching of the soft tissue.
How Can a Kansas City Car Accident Lawyer Help?
Soft tissue injuries are often not given the same amount of consideration in an accident claim as fractures, but they can cause pain and immobility and require temporary immobility for healing. In addition, soft tissue injuries to the skin, such as severe lacerations, may leave scarring and cause disfigurement.
If you’ve experienced temporary or permanent damage from soft tissue injuries in a Kansas City car accident, contact the Kansas City accident attorneys at Miller & Hine who get results in soft tissue injury claims, even against insurance companies that commonly dispute the severity of these injuries.