You thought you were lucky to walk away from the wreckage of your vehicle — until you registered the pain in your head and the blood on your face. When you saw your reflection, you were shocked at just how badly battered you looked from facial injuries that you didn’t even immediately register during the accident.
Facial injuries are very common in car accidents. Between flying objects, the force of the air bag explosion and the shattered glass or metal, people end up with all kinds of serious head injuries. While many people worry about traumatic brain injuries after a wreck, injuries that spare the brain but damage the skull are also quite serious.
If you’re lucky, all you will have after a wreck are a few soft-tissue injuries — cuts and bruises that will heal without a trace in a few weeks. If you’re not, you may have some of the following:
- A broken nose and nasal bone fractures
- Broken cheekbones (zygomatic fractures)
- A “blow-out” fracture of the eye socket
- A broken jawbone
- Fractured, broken or missing teeth
- Friction burns
While plastic surgery and dental work can do wonders over time, anyone suffering from a serious facial injury is probably looking at months of painful healing. Scars are common. Surgery in those areas can be delicate and many patients (around 47.6%) can expect to have secondary operations. In many cases, patients struggle with permanent facial deformities to their eyes and noses.
Car accidents are over in seconds, but the consequences of one can linger for a lifetime. If you suffered serious facial injuries in a wreck due to another driver’s negligence, find out more about your right to compensation.
