A catastrophic injury is a traumatic injury that can cause life-long physical, mental and emotional impairments. An accident or incident, such as a car crash or slip and fall, typically causes these injuries. Understanding what constitutes a catastrophic injury is essential to know the potential risks associated with your everyday activities. To better understand, let’s look at some examples of catastrophic injuries.
Head Trauma and Brain Injuries
Head trauma or brain injuries can have long-lasting effects on an individual’s ability to think, reason, and remember. This type of injury is typically caused by a severe impact on the head that causes damage to the brain tissue itself or when an object penetrates the skull and enters the brain tissue. Common symptoms include seizures, paralysis, memory loss, and cognitive impairment.
Spinal Cord Injuries
What constitutes a catastrophic injury? A spinal cord injury occurs when damage to any part of the spinal cord or nerves at the end of the spinal canal. This type of injury can lead to partial or total paralysis below the site of the damage, depending on how severe it is. Symptoms may also include loss of sensation, difficulty breathing, and pain throughout different body parts.
Amputation
What constitutes a catastrophic injury? Amputation involves removing all or part of a limb due to trauma from an accident or illness resulting in permanent disability. Amputations can affect mobility for those who have lost limbs and their overall quality of life, depending on whether their dominant arm/leg was amputated. Some people may require lifelong medical care and assistance due to these disabilities.
Burns
What constitutes a catastrophic injury? Burns are among the most painful types of damage one can sustain from an accident or incident due to their severity and high risk for infection if not treated properly. Burns can cause disfigurement, scarring, nerve damage, and even death in extreme cases if left untreated for too long or if they become infected after treatment has already been administered.
Broken Bones
What constitutes a catastrophic injury? Shattered bones are yet another widespread type of severe injury that needs extensive medical attention, such as surgery and physical therapy. To ensure proper healing without future issues, some broken bones could necessitate metal pins or screws for stabilization.
What Constitutes a Catastrophic Injury? – In Conclusion
Catastrophic injuries are severe traumas that often take years or even a lifetime to recover from both physically and emotionally fully. Suppose you’ve sustained any serious injury due to an accident caused by someone else’s negligence. In that case, you should consider seeking legal assistance immediately to receive proper compensation for your pain and suffering. Knowing what constitutes a catastrophic injury is critical in understanding how traumatic events such as these could happen to you and how best you could prepare yourself for them should they occur in your life someday soon. Taking steps to protect yourself from potential catastrophes will ensure that you have fewer worries down the road should something ever happen that requires legal action on your behalf to get justice served accordingly.
