Northridge Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyers
Traumatic Brain Injury
What is traumatic brain injury?
Traumatic brain injury (also known as TBI) is any kind of serious injury to the brain. There are two main kinds of TBI: open head and closed head.
Open head TBI
The actual skull gets opened up, and an object penetrates into the brain itself. For instance, if a construction worker falls off a guardrail and slams his head into a pole that cracks his skull, that would be considered an open head injury.
Closed head TBI
A closed head injury is one in which a sudden force or torque gets applied to the brain, resulting in damage to neural tissue.
In our previous example, if the pole hit the head of the construction worker but didn't actually penetrate his skull, then it would be considered a closed head injury. Both kinds of TBI obviously are extremely serious, and both can be fatal or chronically debilitating.
How common are traumatic brain injuries?
According to a recent survey, 5 million people in the United States have suffered some form of serious TBI – that's one out of every 70 people, approximately. Four TBIs occur in this country per minute, on average; TBI is the leading type of injury resulting in death in Americans younger than 45 years of age.
What can cause traumatic brain injuries?
- Construction accidents
- Slip and falls
- Assault with a weapon
- Auto, truck, or motorcycle crash
- Sports injury
- Rollercoaster/amusement park ride accident
- Many other causes
What are the symptoms of a typical traumatic brain injury?
Symptoms depend on the nature of the injury – where and how the sudden force impacted the head and brain; whether or not the injury was open or closed head; and the general health and disposition of the victim. That being said, a TBI victim will typically suffer symptoms such as:
- nausea/dizziness
- headache
- convulsions and spasms
- problems breathing
- trouble seeing/dilated pupils
- unconsciousness/loopiness
- changes in behavior or emotional state
- problems speaking or understanding speech
- cerebrospinal fluid coming out of the ears and/or nose
What kind of compensation can you get for traumatic brain injury?
The nature of the compensation will depend closely on the nature of the injury and the context in which it occurred. For an evaluation of your TBI case, contact the experienced San Fernando Valley brain injury lawyers at the Mandell Law Firm at 818-886-6600.