All manner of injuries can result from a bad traffic wreck. As Baltimore area personal injury attorneys, I and my colleagues agree that being hurt in car, truck or motorcycle accident caused by another negligent individual can be reasonable cause for a legal action against the driver responsible for that particular traffic incident. To our way of thinking, there is hardly any good reason to accept the costs, in terms of pain, potential long-term disability and financial hardship, that a serious car or commercial trucking-related collision can impose on an innocent victim.
It seems only reasonable to hold that negligent party responsible for a victim’s hospital costs, medical and rehabilitation treatments, as well as other related expenditures. And the aftereffects of a roadway collision can be substantial and numerous; from simple, yet long-lasting whiplash injuries to soft tissue damage, broken bones, spinal cord damage and neck injuries, the complication from one or more of these can haunt an innocent accident victim for months or years to come.
In the case of soft tissue injuries, numerous structures throughout the body can be damaged or affected to the point that even daily tasks can be too painful for the average person to complete without assistance. Soft tissues include muscles and ligaments, as well as tendons and cartilage, all of which can be damaged to the point of excruciating pain during even the simplest of activities.
Neck and back injuries can be even more serious. As some of the most common complaints following a traffic wreck, neck and back injuries affect more than one million automobile accident victims annually. In fact, 10 percent of these types of injuries can and do lead to long-term complications and sometimes permanent disability. Such injuries can occur as a result of rear-end collisions and T-bone type car and truck collisions, both of which can result in the oft-heard whiplash injury.
Other back-related injuries involve herniation to one or more of the spinal discs. These kinds of injuries affect hundreds of thousands of people each year in this country. Herniation — a medical condition that typically involves a tearing of the outer fibrous ring of an intervertebral disc (also known medically as prolapsus disci intervertebralis) — can cause symptoms ranging from annoying aches to severe or debilitating paralysis. When involved in a car crash, the victim’s spinal column can undergo severe trauma involving damage to the cells that make up the spinal cord or severing of the nerve tracts that run the length of the spinal cord.
All of these are serious conditions, but they can be survivable. Unfortunately, many automobile accident victims never make it home following a bad roadway crash. One such incident happened in late September when a 35-year-old man passed away following a bad car crash in Eldersburg, MD. According to news reports, the fatal accident took place on a Saturday afternoon when the driver of a Jeep was thrown from his vehicle during a two-car collision along a stretch of Johnsonville Rd.
Based on police information, the collision happened a little after 1pm in the afternoon as a westbound Honda Accord traveled through the intersection of Johnsonville and Piney Ridge Pkwy, in the process striking a northbound SUV being driven by the victim. Following the crash, emergency responders from the Sykesville Fire Department took both drivers to Carroll Hospital Center. The Honda driver reportedly had non-life-threatening injuries; however, doctors were apparently unable to save the Jeep owner’s life and the man died apparenlty as a result of his extensive injuries.
Eldersburg Car Accident Leaves One Dead, Patch.com, September 23, 2012