Eye injuries and vision problems from a car accident

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Can a person get an eye injury from an accident?  

Hello my name is Robert Mansour, and one of the more serious injuries that can happen in a car accident is damage to somebody's eye, vision issues, etc. and these can actually occur.  Sometimes they occur simply due to the trauma of the event, and sometimes also they occur when there's some kind of flying debris, glass, or some particles in the car - or something ends up in somebody's eye - or injuring the eye. 

Sometimes it can also happen from the trauma of the airbag against the face and against the eye.  After all, the eye is just another body part, and it can get injured in an accident although it is generally a more “rare” injury so one of the things that can be affected is just your daily life.  Your vision being hampered, it can affect your ability to drive, your ability to read - A person's vision is a very serious affair. 

One of the most important things that you can do if you think you may have an eye injury from an accident, especially if you start noticing blurred vision or you feel some kind of a scratching sensation in your eye, or it is difficult to focus, you need to go see an optometrist or an ophthalmologist right away.   An optometrist is generally your basic eye doctor, the kind of person who helps you with your glasses.  And then an ophthalmologist is more of a “specialist” with the eye, and you need to go there and have them check and make sure that your eye is okay.  You don't want to overlook this issue. 

Also, what is very important is proper documentation.  If you've had a car accident and you think you injured your eye in some way, you need to mention that to the doctors!  When you go to the emergency room or anywhere else, you say “Listen…something’s wrong!”  Proper documentation is very important - you see, if the insurance adjuster and the insurance companies see that the eye injury appears later or a few weeks later all of a sudden the eye injury becomes an issue and it was never an issue before, they might doubt that the eye injury is from the car accident - especially if you're silent for several weeks much like any injury you've got to mention it at the very beginning. 

Also, if the accident caused the eye injury your records need to say that! The ophthalmologist or the optometrist needs to say that!  In their records, it needs to say "The accident most likely than not or more likely than not caused this injury to occur".  Sometimes the injury can also lead to the eyelid or to the eye itself, the cornea, the iris, the retina; a variety of parts of the eye can be injured in an accident.  It's very important to seek help right away.  And then of course you want to make sure your records are very clear. 

I had a case one time where my client got into a car accident, and all the glass in the car broke…and he felt something in his eye.  And it was bothering him, and his glasses broke during the accident, so he went to the optometrist, and the optometrist was examining his eye and he said, “You know what?  You have a glass fragment in your eye!” Sure enough, when the wind shield exploded during the accident, he got a little bit of glass in his eye, which caused a permanent scratch on his cornea. And his doctor (his ophthalmologist) had the opinion that “Well, you could do surgery to correct that.”  In all likelihood, it wasn't going to correct it 100 percent.  He was always going to have a deficit with his cornea.  He was always going to see something called a “star burst” effect that, basically, when you see things especially at night when lights are approaching you and they appear to kind of be in a very star exaggerated fashion.  It's very difficult for people with that kind of injury to drive at night, especially with all the lights coming at them.

He also had trouble viewing television. He had to sit very, very close to the TV in order to be able to see it versus before he was fine.  He had to change his glasses.  He had to wear contacts and glasses on top of them.  So eye injuries can be very, very serious injuries and you want to make sure you diagnose them early and catch them early.   Don't think the problem is going to resolve itself.  My name is Robert Mansour, if you want to learn more please visit my website at valencialawyer.com or call my office at 661-414-7100.  Thank you very much.