Crush injuries are among the most painful and frightening injuries a person can experience, causing severe trauma to muscles, bones, and nerves in the affected body part. Sadly, some crush injuries leave a limb or other body part damaged beyond repair. Even more alarming, a crush injury sometimes causes a dangerous chemical reaction that threatens the injury victim’s life, making an amputation a life-saving medical necessity.
What Causes Most Crush Injuries In Missouri?
Fortunately, crush injuries don’t happen every day. It takes tremendous physical pressure to crush a limb or other body part. The most common causes of crush injuries in Missouri and elsewhere include the following:
- Car accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Workplace injuries
- Structural collapses
- Explosions
- Crowd trampling
Crush injuries occur when tremendous pressure compresses a body part, shattering bones and severely damaging soft tissue. This typically happens due to the weight of a vehicle or vehicle parts in a traffic-related accident, or from “struck-by” or “caught-between” accidents in the workplace.
Why Do Some Crushed Limbs Require Amputation?
Facing the loss of a body part is devastating, even when medical imaging and other evidence show that the limb is damaged beyond repair due to a crush injury. Unfortunately, some crush injuries are so severe that amputation becomes necessary due to the following:
- Damage to the nerves not only leaves the part paralyzed, but also causes extreme nerve pain
- The injury is too severe for the body’s ability to heal
- The prognosis for mobility or usability may be better with an amputation and prosthetic device rather than the crushed part
- The crush injury leaves the victim susceptible to infection or compartment syndrome (an area of the body loses circulation and causes cell death to occur)
- Crushed body tissue releases potassium and other body chemicals into the bloodstream, leading to “Crush Syndrome,” which may cause kidney failure, heart failure, and death
A doctor uses medical imaging and other diagnostic tools to evaluate the severity of the damage to muscles, bones, and nerves before determining whether an amputation is required for the best outcome or to save the injury victim’s life.
What Body Parts Are Typically Amputated Due to Crush Injuries?
When a crush injury occurs in the thoracic region of the chest and abdomen, it’s almost always fatal. The same grim prognosis occurs in crush injuries to the head. A crush injury victim cannot be saved through amputation in these cases. However, when a crush injury happens to body parts without life-sustaining organs, an amputation sometimes provides the best outcome. The most common body parts amputated due to crush injuries include the following:
- Digits (fingers and toes)
- Hands
- Feet
- Arms below the elbow
- The entire arm below the shoulder
- Legs below the knee
- The entire leg below the upper thigh or hip
The trauma of dealing with an amputation following a crush injury is physically and emotionally devastating. Fortunately, organizations such as the Amputee Coalition offer reassurance to amputees that most amputation survivors move through common stages of anguish, healing, and recovery, eventually regaining self-sufficiency.
Crushing Injury Compensation
When a crush injury and amputation happened due to someone else’s careless, reckless, or wrongful actions, the injury victim has a right to seek compensation with a St. Louis amputation injury lawyer from the at-fault party. Although a financial award for damages won’t erase the injury, it relieves the associated financial hardship and brings amputees a sense of justice for their permanent catastrophic injury.