Delaware Car Accident Lawyer Explains Soft Tissue Injuries Are Real
As a Delaware car accident lawyer, I am constantly fighting with insurance companies for my clients who have received soft tissue injuries in an accident. The purpose of this article is to explain what soft tissue injuries are, and how they occur.
Soft tissues include ligaments, tendons, muscles and nerves.
Ligaments are tough bands of tissue that connect two bones together to form a joint. Their purpose is to stabilize the joint and control its range of motion by allowing movement in only certain directions so as to prevent dislocation.
Tendons are cords that come from the end of a muscle and insert into a bond. When your muscle contracts, it pulls on the bone and allows parts of our body to move.
Muscles are tissues which have the ability to contract, and so they act as motors to move a joint.
Picture a rubber band. If you stretch it, it expands. When you let go, it snaps back to the way it was originally. But what happens when you use to much force to stretch the rubber band? It doesn’t return to its original shape. That’s what happens when you over stretch a ligament or a tendon.
We’ve all heard the term “whiplash.” Despite how this word is often used, whiplash is not an injury. Instead, it explains the mechanism of the injury when the head and the neck are taken beyond the range that God intended them to go through.
Let’s take a look at a neck injury caused by a rear end car accident. Upon impact from the rear, the car is propelled forward and the body and the shoulders are driven out from under the head. The head stays still based on the law of inertia that says when an object is still it tends to remain still. As the body and shoulders are pushed forward, and the head stays still, the head snaps backwards, severely stressing the neck. As the car abruptly comes to a stop either from hitting the car in front or from the driver braking, the head recoils forward because of the momentum of the stopping car. This movement causes the ligaments and muscles to become torn and strained, and this causes hemorrhages. This eventually heals with scar tissue which is not as elastic as a normal muscle, and this in turn causes your brain to tell you you’re in pain.
