Car crashes can occur at high speeds and produce nothing but bruises or take place at relatively lower speeds and leave someone with permanent injuries. Factors ranging from the age and condition of the vehicles, secondary medical issues with the people in the vehicles, and the angle or nature of the crash itself will all influence what kind of injury someone suffers.
One of the more severe injuries possible during a major crash is an amputation. Amputations occur both when the crash itself tears or cuts part of someone’s body off, as well as when the overall trauma to a body part is so severe that medical professionals have to amputate after the crash.
Although amputations may seem like rare occurrences, thousands of them take place every year in the United States.
How many amputations happened in an average year?
Trauma is the second leading cause of amputation, responsible for about 45% of all limb loss in any given year. When you consider that there are about 185,000 amputations annually, that means that roughly 83,250 people lose limbs in traumatic accidents each year.
While some of those traumatic injury amputations involve workplace machinery or hunting accidents, a significant proportion of them is the result of motor vehicle crashes. Overall, about 228 amputations happen every day across the country.
Losing a body part is a massively expensive injury
It can be impossible to even visualize a life without a specific body part. Thankfully, physical and occupational therapy, as well as advanced prosthetics, can help people recover function and independence after an amputation.
However, getting the best care and rebuilding your life will require substantial resources. From the cost of immediate care after the injury itself to the cost of fitting and constructing prosthetic replacements, the impact of an amputation could easily be hundreds of thousands of dollars. When you also consider that it could change someone’s earning potential and require that they hire others to do certain household maintenance tasks, the cost can be thousands of dollars a year for the rest of your life.
Talking about your injury and its likely impact on your job and household with a lawyer can give you a better idea of the financial impact it will have on you so that you can make more informed decisions about compensation, such as insurance settlement offers.