In car crashes, some injuries have a higher rate of occurrence than others. This includes injuries to the back, neck and head. Head injuries often come along with the possibility of brain damage due to concussion, bleeding or swelling in the brain.
It is important to recognize the signs that might indicate a head injury. This is due to the fact that fast identification leads to quicker treatment, and time is of the essence when it comes to handling head injuries.
Emotional and behavior disruptions
Mayo Clinic discusses the potential ways to identify a head injury. Note that symptoms can appear in a victim’s behavior, emotions, mental state and physical state. The effects often interconnect as well.
For example, head injuries often render people incapable of emotionally processing things as they would in a healthy state. A victim might feel disoriented due to confusion and memory loss caused by the injury. Because of these feelings of disorder and distress, they might have an emotional outburst or breakdown. They could lash out in anger at loved ones or burst into inconsolable tears on the spot.
Short and long term physical red flags
Physically, many symptoms may manifest within seconds of the head injury. Some can take hours to show, though. These signs can range from trouble with balance and mobility to nausea and vomiting. Piercing headaches also commonly occur. A victim might also have unevenly dilated pupils, or they could have a “runny nose”, which might actually be leaking cerebrospinal fluid.
Quick medical care can help prevent worst-case scenarios such as irreversible brain damage. Anyone who suffers from a hit to the head in a crash, regardless of how mild it seems at first, should have a medical professional look them over.
