Common Injuries After a Boca Raton Motorcycle Accident

Unlike in normal cars, the only protection that motorcyclists have is the speed or agility of the motorcycle to try to avoid collisions. However, once they are in a collision, only the clothes on their back and the helmet on their head can protect them. There is no middle frame, no uni-body, no cage around them, no seatbelt to keep them secured firmly to a seat, no airbag, side airbag, front airbag, or whatever else to minimize the movement of the body in a crash. There is no roll bar.

Individuals involved in motorcycle accidents are just free-floating, free-flying human beings which can lead to any number of injuries including road rash, broken bones, severe spinal cord injuries, and head trauma depending on whether they were wearing a helmet or not. As such, any individual involved in such an accident should be sure to consult with a knowledgeable Boca Raton motorcycle accident lawyer to help build a claim against the negligent party.

Aspects of Motorcycle Accident Injuries

When an individual is riding a motorcycle, the only protection they have is what they are wearing on their body. Because there are no airbags or metal surrounding the driver, any impact from an accident can result in a direct trauma to a motorcycle rider’s body.

If they are not wearing protective gear, such as a helmet, padded pants or protective pants, or a padded jacket, the injuries can be quite severe. It is important for the motorcyclist to understand common injuries in Boca Raton motorcycle accidents are usually due to lack of no airbags or seatbelts. An individual is free flying and subject to severe forces.

Road Rash

Road rash is just one of the many common injuries in Boca Raton motorcycle accidents. Road rash is when the pavement is ripping the flesh off of an individual. Depending on how far an individual is scraping along the road, how fast they are going, and what clothing they had on to protect them, it could go down deep.

This happens when an individual is ejected from the motorcycle then their body is skids along the roadway. Those types of injuries can result in skin grafts. Infections can easily set in. The healing process is long, tedious, and painful, similar to that of a burn victim.

An individual’s skin is actually the largest organ in the body, it takes a long time to heal, it is susceptible to infection, and it causes a lot of pain. Road rash may be layer or two of skin. Other times, it could literally go down almost to the bones if the pavement is unforgiving and it will just rip the flesh off of a person.

Trauma and Injuries

An individual could get broken bones, spinal injuries, road rash. Internal injuries are not unheard of common injuries in Boca Raton motorcycle accidents. Other types of injuries that can occur in motorcycle accidents besides head trauma and broken bones are spinal injuries. When an individual is ejected from a motorcycle, they are subject to hitting things and other outside factors.

Nerve Damage

It is not uncommon for people to sustain spinal injuries. Depending on what type of spinal injury an individual sustains, it could result in paralysis from the waist down, paralysis from the neck down, an individual can be a quadriplegic, a paraplegic, or worse if the spinal cord hits and gets damages as a result of the crash.

Nerves exit from the spinal cord at every level of the vertebrae in an individual’s spine, so there could be impingement on nerves or severing of nerves.

An individual could have tingling in their extremities as a result of nerve damage. Nerves generally do not regenerate and so whatever injury an individual is left with is going to be permanent and debilitating.

Broken Bones

If the individual is ejected from the bike, they are going to crash into something. They may hit a car or the ground and break their bones. Depending on the severity of the impact and how fast they are going, an individual will suffer varying degrees of injury. These injuries could include just trauma or may include broken ribs, broken arms, or broken legs.

A motorcyclist who is going 45 miles an hour down the street, for example, that hits the side of a truck, may have severely broken bones that often require surgery. This surgery may involve doctors needing to put pins and screws in an individual’s body to make sure that they can heal in a proper manner.

The severity of the fractures or the severity of the broken bones are generally magnified in a motorcycle accident as compared to a car accident. Even the wearing of some protective gear will help minimize the potential for broken bones after a Boca Raton motorcycle accident, but it will not prevent it.