When you’re in a car accident in South Florida, you may be tossed forward by the impact, and this can cause your chest to collide with the airbag or the steering wheel. This impact can cause broken or bruised ribs, painful conditions that can affect your ability to move easily or to work.
If you’ve suffered injuries in a car crash, contact Flaxman Law Group for a free consultation with a South Florida accident attorney. You’ll get a chance to ask questions and to find out how much your case may be worth.
What Are Bruised and Broken Ribs?
Bruised ribs happen when an impact causes injury to the tendons, muscles, cartilage, or ligaments in your chest, but where your rib bones remain unbroken. While there are fewer risks of complications with bruised ribs than with broken ribs, bruised ribs are still very painful and can make it hard to return to work after a car accident.
Broken ribs happen when one or more bones in the ribcage break or your sternum breaks. This is a more serious condition, and it can involve different kinds of fractures, including:
- Stable fractures, where the bones of the rib cage remain largely in place.
- Oblique fractures, where the bones break at an angle.
- Open fractures, where the broken bone punctures the skin and sticks out.
- Transverse fractures, where a bone breaks lengthwise.
- Comminuted fractures, where bones break into many pieces.
These types of fractures can lead to serious complications, including damage to organs, puncturing of the blood vessels, blood loss, and infection.
But both broken and bruised ribs can be difficult to manage. There’s no way to put your ribs in a brace or cast to help them heal, so you will need to be very careful during the healing process. Whether you have a bruised or broken rib, you may experience many debilitating symptoms, including:
- Severe pain, especially when you inhale or move
- Bruising
- Swelling in the rib area
One challenge with bruised and broken ribs is that you might not notice your injury is serious right away. Many people assume they’ve just suffered a bruise when, in fact, their situation is much more serious. If you hit your chest in a car accident, stay alert for the following symptoms and seek medical help right away if you notice:
- A fever
- Chest pain that gets worse
- Shortness of breath
- Blood when you cough
- Your chest moving strangely when you breathe
- Any changes in appearance to your chest (such as your chest looking caved in)
These can be signs of a medical emergency and you should never ignore these symptoms. After a rib injury, you are at risk of developing pneumonia, mostly because you may breathe more shallowly because of the pain. After a rib injury, you are also at increased risk of a collapsed lung, bleeding in the chest cavity, and even heart attacks. These complications may happen days or even weeks after your car accident, so stay alert to any new symptoms that develop over time and always contact your doctor if you’re worried.
The serious complications of bruised and broken ribs are also one reason why you’ll want to get a full medical evaluation if you’ve been in a car accident. A doctor can evaluate your symptoms, perform a physical exam, and order imaging scans, such as x-rays or MRI or CT scans to diagnose your condition. If there is a serious situation, such as internal bleeding, seeking prompt medical attention ensures you get treatment fast, which improves your chances of survival.
Do I Have a Claim for My Bruised or Broken Ribs?
In Florida, you have the right to a legal claim if your injuries were caused by someone’s negligence. If a drunk driver or reckless driver caused the crash where your ribs were broken or bruised, you may have a claim and may be able to seek financial recovery for your medical costs, lost income, car repairs, and any other reasonable costs (such as pain management medications or personal help at home during your recovery).
Bruised and broken ribs can take six or more weeks to heal, even without complications, and losing six weeks of income can be significant. If you’ve been injured in South Florida and are worried about how you’ll pay your bills or cover medical treatment, call Flaxman Law Group at 866-352-9626 to schedule a free consultation with a Florida car accident attorney.
Our boutique, family-focused law firm, with offices in Miami, Homestead, and Hollywood, has more than 50 years of combined experience. Our father-son attorney team and our legal team have helped plaintiffs recover over $100 million in settlements and court wins and we’re proud of our commitment to personalized, compassionate attention. Let’s talk about your injuries and what we might be able to do to help you seek compensation.