The majority of traumatic brain injuries are not fatal. They may have serious complications, and they may take a long time to recover from, but people live through them. Minor brain injuries, such as concussions, may heal with very little medical treatment at all.
On the other side of the spectrum, though, there are serious brain injuries that can have fatal consequences. In some cases, this just happens because people are not sure of the difference between the two and they don’t know what symptoms to look for. It’s very important to understand how dangerous a brain injury can be so that you know when to seek medical attention. To that end, let’s look at three potentially fatal brain injuries.
A subdural hematoma
A subdural hematoma involves bleeding that puts pressure on the brain tissue. This is an internal issue, so there’s no external signs of bleeding or anything of this nature. Since it is internal, this also means that the pressure ramps up endlessly unless the bleeding stops or that pressure is released. Given a long enough time without treatment, a brain bleed can cause cell death within the brain and could even turn completely fatal for the patient.
An open brain injury
Many brain injuries are closed, meaning that the brain is still encased in the skull and is not been physically harmed by outside elements. But there are also cases of open brain injuries, and these can be incredibly traumatic. The brain is a very fragile organ, so it doesn’t take much to cause serious damage. Plus, due to the way that the cells in your brain are constructed, they can’t always regenerate, so any that are lost are gone forever.
A brain injury followed by sleep
One common piece of advice that people will give you if you suffer a brain injury is that you absolutely should not go to sleep right away afterward. You may feel fatigued, but you need to stay awake. The sleep itself isn’t going to make your injury worse, but it can mask the symptoms so that the injury turns fatal before anyone knows that things have progressed to that point. You may lose consciousness and they’ll just think that you ar still asleep.
If you have suffered severe injuries or if you have lost a loved one due to a brain injury, then you need to know how to seek financial compensation.