Don’t assume that a brain injury has reached its maximum level of severity immediately after a car accident. This is true for many other types of injuries, such as broken bones. Healing will begin as soon as you get medical treatment, and your condition should get better over time.
But a brain injury can work the opposite way. It may not feel very severe in the immediate aftermath of the accident, but it can get more serious in the days or weeks to come. In some cases, such as with a subdural hematoma, symptoms could get worse even months later.
Why does this happen?
The issue is that there may be bleeding in the tissues around the brain. The medical term for this, as noted above, is a subdural hematoma.
Immediately after the crash, the bleeding may have started due to a ruptured blood vessel, but the symptoms could still be mild at this early stage. You may find yourself with a slight headache or other symptoms that you assume should go away in the next few hours. Maybe you think you have a concussion or another mild injury.
But as the bleeding gets worse, pressure inside your skull builds up. This can cause damage to the brain. At the same time, the brain is not getting proper oxygenation if blood flow has been cut off. Both of these issues can cause the injury to become much more severe in the future, and it could even become fatal.
This is why it’s so important to look into medical care right after an accident. That care can be very expensive, so you need to know how to seek compensation from the other driver.