Your life changes the moment you suffer facial injuries in a car accident. Whether you experience facial fractures, broken bones, or major soft tissue injuries, physical pain, and permanent deformities can last a lifetime.
Although calling a law firm after sustaining severe injuries in a car accident may not seem important, having an experienced attorney on your side is crucial.
The personal injury attorneys at Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers, LLC have helped countless car accident victims get the compensation they deserve after suffering facial injuries in a car crash. Here we discuss car accident facial scar settlement amounts to give you a sense of how these cases are evaluated.
Our law firm offers a free initial consultation of your case and is ready to fight for your rights. Contact our Chicago car accident lawyers at (888) 424-5757 or complete our contact information form.
Causes of Facial Injury
Many factors in a car accident can cause facial injuries. Such factors include vehicle speed, whether the vehicle strikes another vehicle or object, and whether the passengers are restrained factors into whether facial injuries are sustained in an accident.
- Facial bone fractures can result from a direct blow to the steering wheel
- Eye injuries can occur due to flying objects, including broken glass
- Facial lacerations are common facial injuries that can happen from debris or broken glass
- Significant facial trauma often results when someone is thrown from a vehicle during a motor vehicle accident
- Severe burns are also not uncommon in auto accidents
- Facial deformities, soft tissue damage, and significant abrasions are common injuries following motorcycle accidents
Types of Car Accident Facial Injuries
Suffering multiple types of facial injuries in a car accident is very common.
Soft Tissue Injuries
Soft tissue injuries can range from neurovascular complications to lacerations and even abrasions. Treatment depends upon the extent of the damage.
The trigeminal nerve is a large nerve responsible for functions such as information about touch and pain in the face. It also helps with the movement of the jaw. Facial injuries may damage nerves, requiring immediate surgical intervention.
Preventing infection is of utmost importance when dealing with either a laceration or an abrasion. Lacerations and abrasions offer significant complication risks. An abrasion, which occurs due to sudden friction, requires thorough wound cleansing to remove all foreign particles.
Facial Fractures
Multiple facial bones are susceptible to breaks in car accidents. Flying objects can easily cause a nasal bone fracture, as can trauma from hitting the steering wheel. The jaw and cheekbones are other common sites of fracture in car accidents.
Signs of fracture to facial bones often include significant pain, bruising, and swelling. An X-ray can confirm the extent of the damage.
Although it may not seem like a broken nose is a serious injury, facial injuries, such as fractures, can be life-threatening if they interfere with your breathing or central nervous system. Accident victims may need immediate surgery to correct the damage.
Traumatic Brain Injuries
Brain injuries are significant and may cause a major and lasting impact on a person’s quality of life and ability to live independently. Traumatic brain injury symptoms may present immediately after the accident or several days or weeks following the trauma.
Even a mild brain injury can cause dizziness, sensitivity to light, nausea or vomiting, anxiety, and mood changes. Insomnia is another common but unfortunate side effect of a traumatic brain injury.
Although all brain injuries are serious, a more significant injury to the brain can result in seizures, persistent headache, agitation, and coma. Some brain injury symptoms resolve with time, but others can last a lifetime. Even someone with no history of seizures may be left with debilitating seizures that can be difficult to control.
Following a significant injury to the brain, it may be challenging to focus for more extended periods.
Memory and Learning Problems
Memory, learning, and a person’s ability to interact with others can also be forever altered. Problem-solving and decision-making can also be changed.
Current research suggests that someone’s risk of degenerative brain disease such as dementia increases after sustaining a traumatic brain injury.
Unfortunately, serious traumatic brain injuries can forever alter multiple aspects of a person’s life. It can even affect their ability to care for themselves and live independently.
Facial Burns
Facial scarring is particularly common following burns. Long-term impacts of scarring injuries to the face depend on many factors, including the depth of the burn and genetic factors, which are difficult to predict.
The risk of infection can be incredibly high while healing, making this type of facial injury particularly serious. Extensive plastic surgery and skin grafting may be required to repair the damage from severe burns.
Emotional trauma may result from the accident itself and the disfigurement caused by scarring. Although plastic surgeons do their best to minimize scarring, surgical techniques most often cannot completely restore someone’s previous appearance.
Healing From Serious Facial Injuries
When dealing with the healing process after you have suffered facial injuries in a vehicle accident, it’s essential to consider the short and long-term effects.
Immediate Medical Care
Victims of car accidents need immediate medical attention. Victims often have injuries not immediately detectable, and they require imaging to evaluate the extent of the damage. After the accident, injured people will be sent directly to the Emergency Department (ED) for evaluation.
Because injuries to the face are prevalent following an auto accident, facial injuries are often initially assessed and treated in the ED. Most facial injuries require sutures, staples, or even surgical repair.
Due to the serious injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident, many victims require direct admission to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) upon arrival at the hospital.
This unit is reserved for the most medically fragile patients in the hospital. It ensures patients get the medical attention they need.
The Long Journey to Treat Facial Injuries
Although the ICU is necessary for many victims following an accident, it’s an expensive medical treatment. One study notes that the average length of stay in the ICU for someone with injuries in a vehicle accident is around five days. Another study averages a stay in the ICU at around $3,000 per day.
It’s easy to see how quickly medical care, rehab, and treatment costs can add up.
Long-Term Effects of Serious Injuries
Those costs do not even consider the costs of reconstructive surgery to fix the facial injury. Injuries to vital organs may delay healing and prevent immediate surgery. Immediately following a vehicle accident, the main goal is stabilizing the person in most cases.
However, more severe injuries can lead to permanent scarring and other types of facial trauma requiring treatment by plastic surgeons. Although costly, plastic surgeons can help improve a victim’s physical appearance by reversing permanent disfigurement.
Although lacerations and abrasions may seem relatively harmless, they can cause serious infections requiring weeks of intravenous (IV) antibiotics. Serious infections from a facial injury also require surgical intervention to rid the body of infection.
Burn injuries are some of the most disfiguring facial injuries. Even after a plastic surgeon has performed surgery, victims are often left with permanent scars.
Healing from surgery often means weeks of pain, dressing changes, and medication that may require a home health nurse or even a stay in a nursing home. Minimizing complications post-operatively is challenging, at best, and at worst, leads to more complications.
Why You Need a Car Accident Attorney
After being medically stabilized, contacting a personal injury attorney should be one of your first calls to ensure you receive the compensation you deserve. A law firm can help you navigate the challenges of insurance companies and outstanding medical costs.
Managing Medical Bills
A personal injury lawyer can help you manage medical bills following an accident. Although car accident victims are healing physically and emotionally, the bills do not stop. After a serious car accident, many people cannot work for weeks or even months.
Personal injury lawyers can also help with insurance company negotiations. It’s not uncommon for an insurance company to try and immediately settle for a sum that favors them instead of the injured victim.
Talking with the insurance company before obtaining a personal injury lawyer puts you at risk of getting less than you deserve.
More Questions About Car Accident Facial Scar Settlement Amounts? Call Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers Today
Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers, LLC is a law firm with experience helping victims of car crashes and their families obtain fair compensation. Their attorneys recognize that healing from facial injuries may cause significant pain and a prolonged recovery course.
They understand that expensive and extensive medical treatment is often required to save lives and repair facial wounds sustained in accidents. But it usually leaves victims wondering how their bills will be paid if they cannot work.
The sad fact is that facial injuries are very common following an auto accident. And if you’ve been injured, you need the best team on your side. It would help if you had a team of experienced attorneys ready to battle for your rights.
Take the first step to peace of mind and alleviate the emotional distress of your face and eye injuries by calling our legal team at (888) 424-5757 or completing our contact information form to schedule your free initial consultation today.
Resources:
- National Institutes of Health – Open and Closed Wounds
- Science Direct – Facial Injuries
