Blunt-force injuries are extremely common. When someone slams into their seat belt during a car crash or bangs their head in a slip and fall accident, the impact can fracture bones and bruise soft tissues.
While these injuries can be severe, the relatively short impact time and small area of many blunt-force traumas generally won’t result in the extensive tissue damage caused by crushing injuries.
Crushing injuries often require costly reconstructive surgery. Even with treatment, they may cause permanent disability or even death.
What Is a Crushing Injury?
Crushing injuries, also called crush injuries, typically have the following characteristics:
- A body part is compressed.
- The compression occurs over a broad area rather than a single point.
- The compression may extend over time, as when a car accident victim becomes pinned.
At a microscopic level, compression, like blunt forces, causes cells to rupture. Consequently, compressed organs, bones, and soft tissue tear, collapse, or fracture.
Causes of Crush Injuries
Crush injuries can arise in many types of accidents. Because of their nature, they often involve heavy objects or machinery that has great weight or generates powerful forces.
The following types of accidents can all produce crushing injuries.
Motor Vehicle Accidents
Under certain conditions, car accident victims can suffer crushing injuries. Vehicle-related crush injuries illustrate the diversity of processes that can produce this kind of damage.
Crushing injuries can occur over time. For example, a head-on collision could drive a vehicle’s engine into the firewall, trapping and crushing the driver’s legs. In this case, the damage from the injury compounds until first responders free the victim.
However, these injuries don’t always require prolonged compression. A pedestrian may suffer a crushing injury when a car knocks them over and runs over their arm. Even if the vehicle doesn’t stop, its weight will crush the limb as it rolls over it.
Workplace Accidents
Many workplaces contain potential crushing hazards. Even offices have boxes, file cabinets, and electronic appliances that could injure unsuspecting employees.
A worker might suffer a crushing injury in any of the following workplace accident scenarios:
- A heavy object falls onto them
- They get caught in a machine
- A work vehicle, such as a forklift, rolls into or over them
Workplace safety regulations include rules meant to reduce the risk of crushing injuries. These rules often impose preventive measures, such as lockouts that disable machines if the operating worker’s hands leave the controls.
Construction Accidents
Crushing injuries are particularly prevalent on construction sites. In fact, accidents involving workers getting caught in or between objects are among OSHA’s Focus Four, the four accident types that cause the majority of construction site fatalities.
The following scenarios are examples of these construction accidents:
- Construction materials falling on a worker
- Machinery trapping a worker
- Vehicles with poor visibility running into or over workers
- Structures, tunnels, or trenches collapsing and burying a worker
These accidents aren’t always fatal. They can also result in non-lethal disabling injuries.
Symptoms and Effects of Crushing Injuries
Crushing injuries can produce devastating effects, including the following:
Shattered Bones
Since crushing forces often cover a large area, they can easily shatter bones. The technical term for this type of harm is “comminuted fracture,” which occurs when a bone breaks into three or more pieces.
These fractures generally can’t be repaired by simply immobilizing the bone. Instead, surgeons must reconstruct the bone by piecing it together and securing it with screws and plates. In addition to surgical repair, these fractures often require a lengthy recovery period and extensive physical therapy.
Tissue Death and Amputation
When cells are crushed, they rupture. If the damage is too extensive, the body can’t heal the affected area, resulting in tissue death. For example, crushed nerves may sustain permanent damage, leading to numbness, pain, and weakness in the affected area.
Similarly, crushed blood vessels can’t circulate oxygenated blood to the injured area. They’ll either leak or become blocked, resulting in continued tissue death due to oxygen deprivation. If doctors can’t graft blood vessels from another part of the victim’s body or a donor to restore circulation, a larger area will be affected, and amputation may become necessary.
Crush Syndrome
Crush syndrome occurs when dead, damaged cells enter the bloodstream. According to one study, up to 15% of victims of structural catastrophes develop crush syndrome, and 50% of those with crush syndrome develop renal failure.
Contact Anderson Injury Lawyers for a Free Consultation With a Fort Worth Personal Injury Lawyer
Crushing injuries can have devastating effects and may require amputation, reconstructive surgery, or kidney dialysis. If you’ve suffered such an injury due to someone else’s wrongdoing in Texas, you may be entitled to seek compensation for your related expenses. Contact Anderson Injury Lawyers today at (817) 294-1900 for a free consultation with a Fort Worth personal injury attorney to discuss your accident and how we can help.