Blog, Catastrophic Injury

What’s Considered A Catastrophic Injury?

by Mitri Shatara
April 6, 2022

Surviving an accident can be a minor inconvenience, or it can be completely life-altering.

While some people can walk away from accidents with minor bumps and bruises, some people suffer severe injuries that change the trajectory of their life.

These severe injuries are called catastrophic injuries, and they often involve the most complex systems in your body.

In the article below, we will discuss what constitutes a catastrophic injury in personal injury lawsuits.

Table of Contents

What Is A Catastrophic Injury?

A catastrophic injury is a severe, often permanent injury that can lead to disability.

They are often injuries to the spine, spinal cord, or brain and include skull or spinal fractures.

An injury of this severity affects the victim and their family.

In many cases, the family has to step in to care for the injured individual because they can no longer care for themselves or return to work.

A catastrophic injury involves the immediate financial losses of emergency treatment and hospitalization and the cost of ongoing or lifelong medical care and support.

Examples Of Catastrophic Injuries

Certain catastrophic injuries occur more often than others.

Here are a few examples of different types of catastrophic injuries.

These injuries are often caused by the negligence, carelessness, or recklessness of another individual or entity:

Traumatic Brain Injury: These injuries often result in life-long cognitive dysfunction, abnormal speech and language, and emotional difficulties. A TBI can also result in a limited ability to move your arms and legs.
Spinal Cord Injury: Injuries to your spine can result in partial or complete paralysis. They may also lead to respiratory and circulatory problems, chronic pain, exaggerated reflexes and spasms, and loss of bowel and bladder control.
Severe Burn Injury: Severe burns can cause infections, lead to amputation, disfigurement, and permanent disability.
Limb Loss: Losing a limb completely disrupts an accident victim’s life. It causes tremendous physical and emotional challenges for the amputee and their loved ones.

Damages You Might Recover After A Catastrophic Injury

If a negligent party caused your accident, you may pursue a range of damages to cover your losses.

Even if you share fault for the accident, you may still be eligible to recover some measure of damages.

The exact amount you may recover will vary depending on the circumstances surrounding your accident, your medical condition, future prognosis, and who caused the accident.

In most catastrophic injury cases, you have the right to pursue the following types of damages with an experienced personal injury lawyer.

Medical Costs

Catastrophic injuries result in astronomical medical bills.

These types of injuries usually require long-term hospitalization, surgeries, long-term physical therapy, and prosthetics.

Personal injury law allows you to recover the cost of any current or future medical care needed due to the accident.

Lost Wages

Anyone that suffers a catastrophic injury is going t miss time from work.

You may miss months or even years of work.

Sometimes catastrophic injury victims never return to work.

You could be eligible to recover lost income as well as future lost wages and employment benefits, such as retirement savings after a catastrophic accident.