Pennsylvania Open Head Injury Attorney
The brain is like the body’s central computer and controls all of our bodily functions, thought processes, and emotions. The brain is made up over 100 billion nerves that are firing and collecting information continuously. Damage to the brain can have serious consequences. While the brain is protected by the strong bones of the skull, a strong blow or force on the skull can cause the skull to crack, break, or shatter, leaving the delicate brain open to serious and often permanent injury. Car accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, bullets, blunt force trauma, construction accidents, falls, falling objects, and projectiles may cause open head injuries.
Open head injuries occur when an object breaks through the skull and surrounding membranes and enters the brain, causing traumatic brain injury. Victims of open head injuries are susceptible to serious infections like meningitis, which can be fatal.
There are different types of open head injuries, some of which are more serious than others.
- Linear skull fractures occur when there is a crack in the skull bone, but no penetration to the brain tissue. While linear skull fractures may seem to be less serious than other types of injuries, they can cause damage to blood vessels and cause a leakage of cerebrospinal fluid, or the fluid that surrounds, cushions, and protects the brain. Leaking cerebrospinal fluid puts the brain at risk of sustaining further injury.
- Depressed skull fractures occur when a strong force or pressure presses the skull bones into the brain. Broken skull pieces can puncture and compress parts of the brain, causing severe brain damage. Depressed skull fractures are usually the result of a severe blunt force to the head, like in a car accident. Brain injuries from depressed skull fractures tend to be the most catastrophic and can cause permanent brain damage, disability, and death. Surgery may be required to remove bone fragments, or to apply synthetic skull.
- Basilar & Diastatic skull fractures occur mostly in newborns and infants, and occur at the suture lines of the skull, or the lines and soft spots where the skull fuses together as a child grows. Child abuse or accidents can cause basilar and diastatic skull fractures.
Open head injuries are a form of traumatic brain injury that can have devastating and long term effects on a victim, as well as on the victim’s family and loved ones. Even after the initial trauma that caused an open head injury, the brain can sustain even more damage due to swelling, increased pressure on the brain, hemorrhage, edema, hematomas, blood clots, and ischemia, or lack of oxygen to the brain. Unfortunately, seizures, paralysis, dementia, coma, and death are common outcomes of catastrophic brain injuries. Victims of traumatic brain injury may lose their ability to breathe, communicate, walk, read, eat, bathe, or may end up in a vegetative state. They may also experienced changes in personality, changes in behavior, have memory loss or impairment, experience slowed thinking, disturbed sleep, irritability, and develop depression.
Victims of open head injuries will often require life long medical care to deal with their injuries and disabilities. Physical therapy, rehabilitation, and occupational therapies are often required to help people suffering from traumatic brain injuries regain some abilities they once had. They may also require care of neuropsychologists, speech therapists, and psychologists. Sadly, some insurance carriers will not cover all of these types of treatments or long hospital stays, leaving victims and families with huge medical bills.
The experienced Philadelphia brain injury attorneys of Reiff & Bily may be able to help you through this difficult time, and get you compensation to help pay for your medical bills and loss of income. We understand the physical, emotional, and financial strain catastrophic injuries can bring to victims and their families. For over three decades, the lawyers at Reiff & Bily have fought battles for those who can’t fight for themselves, and have won hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of catastrophically and wrongfully killed victims and their families. If you or a loved one was catastrophically injured and sustained an open head injury, our team of legal experts, doctors, and nurses has the experience, expertise, and tenacity to fight for justice.
