Traumatic Brain Injuries kill about 50,000 Americans every year. These injuries are permanent. Once brain cells die, they never regenerate. Doctors may be unable to cure TBIs, but they can treat them. A combination of surgery and physical therapy usually helps victims live normal lives after their injuries.
Causes of Brain Injuries
In general, negligence, or a lack of reasonable care, causes most brain injuries. If a Kansas City personal injury attorney establishes negligence in court, substantial compensation might be available. Usually, this compensation includes money for economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering. Below are the top five causes of brain injuries.
Vehicle Collisions
Impact speed of 30 mph means about 30 gs, or 2.4 tons, of force. Seatbelts, airbags, and other restraint systems cannot completely nullify the effects of that much force. Rather, they can only minimize the effects.
As a result, head injuries are common in vehicle collisions. In fact, car crashes are the leading cause of TBIs in Missouri. Frequently, the sudden, violent motion is enough to cause such injuries.
Many people think the brain fits snugly against the skull, like a hand in a glove, but that is not true. Instead, the skull is basically a water tank which suspends the brain in cerebrospinal fluid. When the victim’s head violently jerks forward and backward in a crash, the brain repeatedly slams against the inside of the skull.
Falls
It does not take too much force to cause a collision-related head injury, and victims need not fall from skyscrapers to sustain head injuries. In fact, slip-and-fall injuries constitute the vast majority of these incidents.
Older people are especially susceptible to fall injuries, mostly because many of them suffer from gait disorders. When younger people stumble, perhaps over a crack in the sidewalk or a wet spot on the floor, they can usually recover their balance. When many older people stumble, they fall.
Property owners are legally responsible for fall injuries if they owed a legal duty to the victim, which is usually the case, and they knew or should have known about the fall hazard.
Violence
Frequently, property owners are also legally responsible for assaults and other intentional torts. In addition to duty and knowledge, victim/plaintiffs must establish that the third-party assault was foreseeable. Evidence of foreseeability includes:
- Prior incidents on the premises,
- Clearly inadequate security, like burned-out lights,
- Earlier incidents in the general area, and
- Security which fails to meet industry standards for property in a high-crime area.
Additional money for brain injury victims might be available through Missouri’s crime victim compensation fund.
Sports Injuries
Contrary to the popular myth, sudden and extremely violent trauma does not cause most sports-related brain injuries. Rather, it is the cumulative effect of many smaller contacts. Sports-related brain injuries are especially common in children and youth sports. Youngsters’ brains are still developing, so they are quite vulnerable to injury. In many cases, these children wear no more protective equipment than their older counterparts.
Sudden Loud Noises
Blunt force trauma does not cause many combat-related brain injuries. Rather, it is the sudden loud noise of an explosion or other such sound. These sounds create shock waves which disrupt brain functions, much like an electromagnetic pulse disrupts electrical devices.
Vehicle collisions also cause a number of noise-related TBIs. Many witnesses testify that the loud noise of a car crash is like an explosion. That’s especially true in high-speed freeway wrecks.
Contact a Dedicated Attorney
If you have been injured due to another person’s negligence, call Aaron M. House at 816-875-4260 today for a free consultation.
Tags: brain injury, traumatic brain injury
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