Falls can result in a wide variety of injuries to your back, and more specifically, to your lower back. We often see serious neck injuries similar to whiplash injuries that someone may suffer in a car accident.
We also see shoulder injuries, wrist injuries and elbow injuries because people often instinctively put their arms out to try to lessen the impact of the fall. Consequently, serious torn rotator cuff injuries and torn ligament injuries in wrists or elbows are common, as well as fractures and broken bones.
We often see knee injuries, torn meniscus, torn cartilage type injuries, and torn ligaments, ACL, and MCL. You often hear of injuries of this nature in sports cases. If someone twists during a fall, there are many types of knee damage that could occur.
Serious ankle injuries are common as well, and often they are difficult to properly heal.
Concussions occur less often than other injuries, but they still occasionally happen. People normally instinctively protect their heads in even the most unexpected falls. However, in snow and ice cases where the falls are so sudden you don’t have a chance to guard yourself in any way, we meet with people who hit their heads on a hard surface who suffer some kind of concussion injury.
In the worst case scenarios, some form of traumatic brain injury, which is an entirely different category of injuries, often overlooked and undiagnosed, can occur.
Less experienced attorneys who are not familiar with “TBI” – traumatic brain injury, may fail to include it as an injury you sustained on account of the slip, trip and fall.
Brain injuries of this type are often overlooked because the symptoms can mirror other kinds of everyday problems. If they see an attorney and/or doctor familiar with TBI, they can usually explain that the source could be a jarring of the brain inside your skull could be a result of hitting your head from a slip and fall or a trip and fall.