Bleeding From The Inside After An Accident Can Be Deadly

When someone is bleeding, we immediately rush to their attention, as we should. Blood is visible, and a sign that immediate medical attention is needed. But what about bleeding that we don’t see? In fact, internal bleeding can be every bit as dangerous—and sometimes, more dangerous—than the external bleeding that we do see.

What is Inside Our Bodies?

To understand why internal bleeding is so dangerous, it is important to understand what is inside of our bodies. Our bodies are not full of blood. Rather, blood runs through arteries and veins. When you bleed externally, that isn’t blood “spilling out of you,” it is blood that is coming from a severed or ruptured artery or a vein.

Actually, the insides of our bodies are quite hollow—or at least, not full of blood. There is little “empty space,” though, as our organs are backed very tightly against each other inside of us. But the space between our organs is not full of blood, and is in fact, quite empty.

Dangers of an Internal Bleed

When an organ inside the body sustains trauma or impact, it can be damaged, and bleed. However, when the bleeding happens inside of us, the blood from the organ or from the injury, starts to fill up the previously empty cavities inside our bodies.

Remember that there is little empty space inside of us. That means that when blood starts to run internally, there is nowhere for it to go. As a result, it starts to fill the empty cavities, and put pressure on, and press against, other internal organs. This pressure can damage other organs, or get them to stop working entirely.

Hard to Detect

Worse, unlike external bleeding which people tend to immediately, because we don’t see internal bleeding, it often gets ignored until it becomes deadly. In fact, smaller, slower internal bleeds may not even show up on scans done immediately after an accident, in a  hospital emergency room. These kinds of bleeds may start off with vague, undefined symptoms that you may not even recognize as being from an internal bleed.

Common symptoms that you may be bleeding internally may include:

-Confusion or dizziness

-Lowered blood pressure

-Bruising in areas that did not suffer any impact or trauma, or bruising that spreads unexplainably

-Blood in bodily fluids

-Difficulty speaking, or other signs that may seem similar to those that people have when they are suffering from a stroke

Remember that any kind of trauma to your body can cause internal bleeding, even if your skin isn’t actually broken. Crushing injuries, or blunt force trauma (imagine a steering wheel being pushed into your midsection in a car accident) can be enough to cause internal bleeding.

Even if the hospital emergency room has cleared you and found nothing wrong, you should not be alone; have a friend or loved one stay with you to make sure you are OK after an accident, and call a doctor if you experience any of the symptoms above.

Have you been in an accident and suffered an internal bleed of any kind? Contact our Rhode Island personal injury lawyers at Robert E. Craven & Associates at 401-453-2700 today.

Sources:

medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320322#:~:text=Internal%20bleeding%2C%20also%20known%20as,the%20skin%20or%20minor%20bruising.

webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-4069/coumadin-oral/details