What to Do If You Experience Chest Pain After a Car Accident

July 18, 2024

Almost two million Americans are injured in car accidents each year, leaving them to cope with a wide array of concerns, including pain and discomfort of the chest. Chest pain after a car accident is typically the result of trauma to the chest wall, which is very often sustained during head-on or rear-end collisions and accompanied by contusions and swelling. While chest pain following a car accident could resolve itself in a matter of days, sometimes it may point towards underlying cardiac or pulmonary issues that could be life-threatening.

How can you keep the worst from happening when you hurt your chest in a crash? Join us as we as explore what to do if you experience chest pain after a car accident.

What Causes Chest Pain After a Car Accident?

Modern motor vehicles feature restraint systems to shield drivers and passengers in the event of a car accident. If motorists are kept firmly in place, they can avoid additional injuries from smashing into fixtures and items in a vehicle’s interior, such as the steering wheel, the instrument panel, the body pillar, or the windshield. The two primary safety mechanisms in a car are seatbelts and airbags, which have been standard in the front seats of new passenger vehicles since the late 1990s.

And make no mistake, these devices can be literal lifesavers. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that seatbelts have prevented over 374,276 deaths since 1975, while another 50,000 lives may have been spared by airbags during the most recent three decades on record.

But the assistance provided by seatbelts and airbags does not come without drawbacks. The force of a sudden front or rear impact may throw a driver or passenger forward, and the opposing force from the seatbelt or airbag will frequently injure the chest, sometimes quite painfully so. And if a motorist is not wearing a seatbelt or if no airbags deploy, the damage to the chest could be extreme.

Common Chest Injuries Following a Car Accident

Chest pain might surface in the immediate aftermath of a car crash, though it is not unusual for there to be delayed chest pain. After car accident injuries to the chest make themselves known, however, they may prove to be relatively mild if the motorist was properly fastened and might only include abrasions, contusions, discoloration, or effusion.

Alternatively, car accidents of higher velocity or momentum could inflict more serious chest injuries, like skin or tissue lacerations or fractures of the ribs or sternum. These would require emergent medical intervention, though perhaps of a minimally invasive nature, such as wound irrigation and disinfection, stitching, and wrapping and/or binding to stave off greater harm.

In some instances, though, chest pain could be indicative of potentially deadly injuries, some of which may include:

Flail chest – When three or more adjacent ribs are broken in two areas, that segment could move separately from the rest of the chest wall.

Cardiac damage – The heart or the aorta may be damaged from a heavy blow, which could disrupt blood circulation and basic cardiac function. Blunt force trauma to the heart could sometimes lead to chamber or valvular rupture, arrhythmia, or even myocardial infarction (heart attack).

Pulmonary trauma – The lungs could be bruised or punctured or may even collapse, partially or totally constricting the ability to breathe, which could be further compromised by trauma to the diaphragm.

Throat impairment – The esophagus or the trachea may be impaired or crushed when the chest is struck, which could severely curtail digestion or respiration.

Chest penetration – Automotive fragments could penetrate the chest during a car accident and puncture the organs.

Hemorrhaging – Damage to blood vessels in the chest may produce significant internal bleeding which must be gotten under control quickly or the patient could die.

As you can see, collision-related chest injuries could range from moderate to fatal, so it is crucial to delve into the root causes whenever you feel chest pain after a car accident.

Symptoms of a Chest Injury

Other than a sensation of pain in the chest region, whether constant or only in response to touch, movement, or strain, various signs might suggest a chest injury that may demand medical care. Symptoms of a chest injury could include:

Soreness over the chest, ribs, or back

Difficulty breathing

Worsening pain when inhaling, coughing, sneezing, or laughing

Coughing up blood

“Crackling” or “crunching” in the ribs or beneath the skin

Even if these symptoms appear to have “gone away,” that does not mean that the conditions that these symptoms might indicate have gone away too. If you have any inkling of a chest injury, don’t put off doing something about it. It is always better to rule out an injury that you do not have than to disregard an injury that you do have.

Steps to Take If Your Chest Hurts After a Car Accident

If your chest hurts after a car accident, there are a number of steps you should take to protect your health as well as any personal injury case you might have. Specifically, you should remember to:

Dial 911 – Should you start to feel chest pain while you are still at the scene of a car accident, dial 911 to request the presence of police and emergency personnel if they have not showed up yet. Since an inaccurate police report could come back to haunt any claim you may file with your own insurance company, much less any personal injury case you may initiate against someone else, be sure to give a complete account of what occurred to the responding officers.

Seek medical attention – Speedy medical attention is of the utmost importance when experiencing chest pain because any delays in care could put you in jeopardy and hinder your ability to heal. Paramedics at the crash site might be able to tend to some of your symptoms, but you will probably need to undergo x-rays or other types of imaging or tests before you can diagnose your injury and begin an appropriate course of treatment for it. As such, a trip to the nearest emergency room may be necessary, whether by ambulance or a private mode of transportation.

Moreover, the sooner you consult a doctor or caregiver, the sooner your injury can be officially recorded, which is essential when establishing a personal injury case. Gaps in treatment are not only detrimental to the healing process. They could also permit doubt to be cast on the causal relationship between the problem causing your chest pain and the car accident in which your chest was hurt. On the other hand, medical paperwork verifying the existence of a chest injury on the same date as the collision could provide vital support when dealing with insurance companies with applicable coverage for your car accident.

But regardless of where you ultimately get treated, it is pivotal that you do get treated. Far too many injured motorists attempt to “tough it out” because they are worried about spending the time and money. Nevertheless, those savings could be an illusion if a minor complication develops into a major one because you chose to disregard symptoms that should have been addressed until they became too big to ignore. And if you arrive at that stage, what you may have to do to get back to normal could end up being much more elaborate, obliging you to spend even more time and money to achieve a lesser outcome.

Take pictures and shoot videos – Contemporary visual documentation of a car accident could be invaluable in assigning blame and cataloging the physical and financial damages incurred because of a collision. When it is safe to do so, use your phone to take pictures and shoot videos of your surroundings, capturing the placement of the vehicles, evidentiary materials such as metal or glass shards or tire tracks, and your injuries. An image of a chest hematoma snapped just moments after a crash could make a much stronger impression on a jury than a reference to that same hematoma long after it has healed.

And don’t confine your photographic activities to that one situation either. Photos and videos taken over the duration of your treatment could convey your struggles much more effectively than mere words ever could.

Exchange information – Before you leave, don’t forget to exchange identifying information with everyone involved in the car accident, as you may need it later on to find the defendants if you choose to go ahead with a claim for your chest injuries. This information may include:

Name

Address

Phone number

Driver’s license

License plate

Vehicle make, model, and year

Insurance company and policy number

If there are bystanders who saw the car accident but weren’t directly involved in it, try to take down their names and numbers too, since independent confirmation of the incident could be useful.

Reach out to your auto insurance company – Reach out to your auto insurance company promptly so that you can remain in compliance with the terms of your policy and access any of its benefits, which might include remuneration for chest injury treatment, towing, rentals, and repairs.

Stay away from other insurers – The insurers for the other parties may be eager to reach out to you as well, though you may want to stay away from them, since even the most innocuous statement you make to a veteran insurance adjuster could be twisted to undermine your claim. Instead…

Talk to a car accident lawyer – A knowledgeable car accident attorney could answer any questions you may have and put you in the best position if you decide to pursue a case for your car accident chest injuries.

Do You Need to Hire a Lawyer for Car Accident Chest Injuries?

But do you actually need to hire a lawyer for your car accident chest injuries? Couldn’t you just get compensation for your losses on your own? While you are certainly entitled to represent yourself, you could be at a notable disadvantage if you do so.

The chief source of economic recovery in any car accident case is the liability insurance carriers for the defendants, a list that could be much more substantial than you might think. Aside from the driver who hit you and the owner of his or her vehicle (if different from the driver), other defendants might include a company making use of the vehicle (if different from the owner) and a host of contractors and even government agencies, depending upon the facts leading up to your car accident. Sometimes multiple individuals and entities could share varying levels of legal liability simultaneously, for which they could share varying levels of fiscal liability.

Given how many defendants there could be for a single car accident, it is critical to go after all of them within the time allotted by law, known as the Statute of Limitations, because neglecting to do so could forever bar you from full recovery.

And even if you somehow tracked down everyone responsible for the car accident, you may have trouble assessing what your losses are worth, which you absolutely must do if you hope to recoup what you deserve. As a rookie plaintiff, you might be inclined to agree to a settlement that only reflects your current monetary losses from a traffic accident, such as the bills for your medical treatment just after the crash.

But this may constitute only a fraction of your true losses, particularly when it comes to chest pain, which may sometimes emerge only weeks or even months after the collision. And if you have already accepted an offer for the car accident before the long-term consequences have made themselves known, you may have nowhere else to turn when they rear their heads, to say nothing of the non-monetary damages that are sometimes more enduring.

And keep in mind that insurance companies aren’t in the business of just shelling out what they owe to anyone who asks for it. They have an incentive to minimize their exposure and may be more than willing to exploit your inexperience to settle your claim for pennies on the dollar, or just deny it altogether, leaving you with few options when your family may be on the brink of ruin.

What a Car Accident Attorney Will Do for You

This is where a car accident lawyer, like the seasoned Indiana car accident attorneys at Hensley Legal Group, can help. Just as this won’t be the first case for the insurance company, it won’t be the first for your lawyer either, who will be able to counter the textbook tricks and tactics that insurance adjusters love to trot out. This is a key reason why personal injury plaintiffs with attorneys receive 3.5 times what plaintiffs without them receive and why 85 percent of the funds paid out by insurance companies go to claimants with professional representation.

Not only will your car accident lawyer be better equipped to meet the insurance company on a level playing field. He or she will be better equipped to evaluate your damages too, whether they are short-term, long-term, monetary, or non-monetary, including your:

Past, present, and future medical bills

Lost income

Reduced earning capacity

Pain and suffering

Mental and emotional anguish

Diminished quality of living

Mobility restrictions

Loss of consortium

Punitive and wrongful death damages (if relevant)

What will a car accident attorney do for you? Once retained, your lawyer will launch a comprehensive investigation into the circumstances of your car accident and everyone who may be culpable for it, acting swiftly to amass the elements needed to bolster your claim, such as:

Police reports

Traffic citations and dispositions

Dash cam, streetlight, and surveillance footage

Black box data

Eyewitness statements

Phone records

Driving histories

Vehicle inspection logs

Accident reconstruction and forensic analysis

After assembling an airtight case, your attorney will then enter into negotiations with the defendants’ insurance carriers. When confronted with compelling evidence of the extent of the plaintiff’s losses and the depth of the insured’s negligence, a reasonable insurer may be convinced to tender a fair settlement rather than chance a worse verdict at trial.

Indeed, most car accident cases are settled outside of the courtroom, though sometimes a trial may be inevitable, especially when squaring off against an obstinate adjuster who insists on coming back with insultingly low offers instead of acting in good faith. In that scenario, a battle-tested litigator will become even more indispensable. While only four percent of plaintiffs who represent themselves in court ever win their cases, plaintiffs with lawyers win more than they lose, sometimes even garnering verdicts or judgments that exceed what they could have gotten through a negotiated settlement.

And if you are reluctant to commit to more expenditures when you may least be able to afford them, you should know that most car accident attorneys work on a contingency basis. This means that it should not cost you anything up front to hire a lawyer for your car accident chest pain case, and he or she may even cover some of the preliminary fees associated with it, such as ordering a police report or filing a lawsuit.

Only when your case is brought to a favorable conclusion will reimbursement be sought for out-of-pocket expenses along with payment for services rendered, generally as a percentage of your verdict or settlement – which should statistically be much larger with a skilled car accident attorney in your corner. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement that could allow you to acquire the resources to become whole again.

Advocating for the Hardworking People of Indiana

A car accident can be devastating, leaving you with no idea of what to do next. But if you have been injured through no fault of your own, reach out to the dedicated car accident lawyers at Hensley Legal Group, who have been advocating for the hardworking people of Indiana since 1998.

You can schedule a free case review with an accomplished Indiana car accident attorney by calling or texting us at (317) 472-3333, chatting with us online, or filling out our contact form at your earliest convenience.