Common Situations That Can Cause Brain Injuries

No one ever wants to sustain a brain injury. If you injure your brain, you might not come back the same, even after a lengthy recovery period. The injury may alter your entire personality. You might not have the same powers of speech or movement that you once did.

You can sustain a concussion or a TBI. A TBI, or a traumatic brain injury, means you harmed your brain badly. If a doctor says that’s what happened, exploring the significance of a 15-point scale in TBI diagnoses probably comes next. Medical professionals created this scale relatively recently so they could let patients know a TBI’s severity.

While you can never completely take steps to avoid brain injuries, you should know about some of the most common situations that cause them. We will talk about some of those right now. If you’re ever in the situations that we’re describing, you will know to exercise the proper precautions.

Work-Related Injuries

Work-related situations often cause brain injuries. However, only certain jobs carry a very high brain injury risk.

If you work at a McDonald’s drive-through, then there’s probably little chance that you’ll sustain a brain injury. However, what about if you work on a construction site?

Those kinds of jobs carry an abnormally high injury risk. Think about what you’ll normally do all day if you work construction.

You’re around piles of bricks and large metal tools. If you one of them falls from a scaffolding, and you happen to walk underneath it at that moment, it can hit you in the head.

Even if you’re wearing a helmet, you can still injure your brain that way. If you work in that kind of a field, you should know to exercise all of the proper precautions. There’s an inherent risk that goes along with those kinds of jobs, though, and you can only do so much to keep yourself safe.

Slip-and-Fall Situations

If you’re walking around in a store, you can always slip and fall. If an employee mops the floor and then doesn’t put up a warning sign, that’s a situation that can easily cause a brain injury.

You can slip and fall on a slippery sidewalk outside a store as well. If you live in a region that gets a good amount of ice and snow in the winter, you’ll likely experience extra danger.

Even if you’re just walking around your neighborhood, you can slip on ice or snow on the ground there as well. Maybe you’re walking the dog when it happens, or perhaps you’re walking down your icy front steps at the time.

You can put salt on your steps and driveway to try to make your home safer when you have these conditions. However, when you walk out into the neighborhood, you don’t know whether your neighbors did the same.

Watch your step after a snow or ice storm. As you’re walking around in front of or inside stores, watch your footing. Sometimes you won’t notice a slick or wet patch till it’s too late, and that can easily cause a fall and a brain injury.

Sports-Related Injuries

If you play professional sports, that’s another situation where avoiding injuries becomes difficult. Think about a game like American football.

You’re wearing a helmet, but the inherent violence of the game makes it particularly tough to avoid massive hits. When a 300-pound man tries to tackle you, a helmet can only do so much good.

Football stars like Junior Seau and Aaron Hernandez became completely different people after sustaining multiple concussions during their careers. Their respective fates brought the NFL a lot of attention, and the rule makers started taking concussions much more seriously.

However, virtually any sport carries brain injury risks as well. If you play baseball, you can get a line drive off the side of your head if you can’t react in time.

If you play soccer or hockey, a massive hit from another player can send you crashing to the ground. Maybe you can’t get your arms or hands up in time to protect yourself, and your head takes most of the impact.

Even a relatively low-contact sport like golf carries some risks. An errant golf ball striking you in the head can seriously injure you.

In short, virtually any sports player has a high risk of brain injury. You need to think about that if you do anything like what’s we’ve described professionally. Even if you only play sports on the weekends with your friends for fun, you must still consider the injury risks.

Car Crashes

You can also include car wrecks on the list if you’re thinking about things that can potentially injure your brain. Car accidents can happen at any time, and their suddenness often makes them even more jarring.

Maybe you feel like you’re a great driver, and you’ll likely never sustain a brain injury because of that. You never know whether the driver right next to you takes the same precautions, though.

If a car strikes your vehicle, maybe it’s just a slight fender bender. It’s not likely that will injure your brain.

You may have a situation where another driver T-bones your car, though. If that happens, the collision’s violence might cause your head to bounce off of the window or steering wheel. That can cause a concussion or a TBI.

Sometimes, a car will hit you in such a way that your vehicle will roll over. That’s another scenario that’s so violent that it’s highly likely you’ll sustain a brain injury.

Some people survive rollover accidents, but they’re never the same. If you can walk away from such a wreck with only minor injuries, consider yourself lucky.

No one wants to think about how their life might change if they suffer a brain injury. If it happens, then you have little choice but to deal with the consequences. Try to make decisions in your life that make this a less likely outcome.

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