What Is A Catastrophic Injury?

A catastrophic injury after a car accident is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a serious, debilitating injury caused by an auto accident that has disastrous effects on the injured person’s life. Examples are TBIs and spinal cord injuries. Many survivors cannot work due to life-long disabilities. In addition to turning an injured person’s life upside down, these injuries frequently put serious emotional and financial stress on the person’s family. Families do not when or if their lives will return to normal. Plus, they are faced with concerns about paying for catastrophic medical care and supporting the family. Loved ones may have to miss work or stop working altogether to care for and tend to a family member who has suffered this type of injury.
What is a catastrophic injury?
A catastrophic injury is a serious, disabling injury that has long-term and potentially permanent effects on the injured person’s life. Many injury survivors suffer TBIs or spinal cord injuries that disable from walking, communicating, caring for themselves or working. The seriousness of this type of injury cannot be overstated. What distinguishes it from other, non-calamitous injuries is its life-altering nature. Tragically, the lives that survivors of these types of injuries – as well as their families – live after a car accident all too frequently bear very little resemblance to the lives they lived before their injury.
Types of catastrophic injuries
Whether an injury qualifies as this type of injury depends on the extent to which it alters – either permanently or on a long-term basis – an injured person ‘s ability to live his or her life of her. TBIs and spinal cord injuries are the most common. Common catastrophic injuries include:
- Traumatic brain injury (TBI)
- Head trauma
- Accidental amputation
- Spinal cord injury (SCI)
- Severe burns
- Severe bone fracture
- Multiple bone fractures
- Eye injury
- Shoulder injury
- Foot injury
- Back injury
- Neck injury
- Organ damage
- Neurological disorders
- Paralysis
- Paraplegia
- Quadriplegia