Key Takeaways
- Blindness can result from car accidents, workplace injuries, chemical exposure, or defective drugs, often causing permanent life changes.
- Physical trauma, like blunt or penetrating injuries, can damage the eye, optic nerve, or brain, leading to partial or total vision loss.
- Chemical burns from household or workplace substances can seriously harm the eyes, sometimes causing permanent blindness.
- Defective medications or medical negligence may damage vision, making victims eligible for medical malpractice claims.
- Compensation can include economic damages for medical bills and lost wages, and non-economic damages for pain, suffering, and life disruption.
There are many types of accidents that cause injuries that lead to blindness. This includes car accidents, workplace injuries, and side effects from certain medications. Going blind after an accident is devastating and completely life-altering. You may be unable to work, visit loved ones, or take care of yourself without assistance.
Discover how injuries can cause blindness and how the right catastrophic injury attorney can help you get compensation by reading on.
Injuries That Can Lead to Blindness
Eye injuries can result from a number of different physical and chemical traumas, often leading to serious consequences. Blunt trauma from incidents such as car accidents or falls can cause significant ocular trauma, potentially resulting in traumatic eye injuries. These injuries may cause temporary or permanent vision loss in one or both eyes. In more severe cases, a penetrating injury to the eye or surrounding tissue can cause permanent damage.
Damage inflicted to the optic nerve, any part of the eye, or an area of the brain associated with vision can lead to blindness, particularly in cases involving traumatic brain injuries. Individuals with serious eye injuries often require immediate care in the emergency room to prevent further complications and to preserve as much vision as possible.
Physical trauma
The most common causes of eye trauma are blunt force and penetrative physical trauma. Blunt force trauma causes the eye to contract and expand suddenly, causing partial or total blindness. Penetrative trauma is when an object enters the eye or part of your brain needed for sight. Physical trauma leads to injuries such as:
- Corneal abrasions
- Iris injuries
- Hyphemas
- Lacerations
- Foreign objects in the eye
- Traumatic brain injury resulting in blindness
This type of physical trauma is most likely in accidents involving cars, trucks, motorcycles, or bikes. It also happens due to fires, explosions, or being hit in the eye with a fist.
Chemical exposure and burns
Exposure to chemicals can also cause eye injuries that potentially lead to blindness. Some acid and alkali chemicals in everyday household cleaning products, including toilet bowl and oven cleaners, can damage the eye.
Household soap, sunscreen, and tear gas contain eye irritant ingredients that can cause chemical burns if they’re splashed into the eye. Chemical burns and exposure can also happen on the job and cause serious eye injury.
Defective drugs
Being prescribed the wrong medication or a dangerously defective drug can cause blindness in some patients. These medications cause vision loss from damage to the optic nerve or through optic neuropathy. These conditions can be painful to experience and cause permanent damage.
Type of Compensation Available
Depending on where your accident happened, you may be able to file a personal injury or workers’ comp claim and be compensated for your injury. If your injury was due to negligence from a health care provider, you may be eligible to file a medical malpractice lawsuit.
The type and amount of compensation you receive depend on the severity of your injuries and the facts of your case. Cases involving temporary or permanent vision loss may be deemed a catastrophic injury.
These injuries prevent you from working and result in physical disability. Both economic and non-economic compensation is available in these cases.
Economic damages
Economic damages, also called monetary damages, are the easily quantifiable losses that occurred as a result of your injury. They include your bills from emergency care and hospitalization, ongoing medical care and treatments, and other medical-related expenses, such as the cost of an adaptive equipment you may need after losing your vision. You’ll also be awarded damages for lost wages and any loss of your future earning capacity.
Pain and suffering
Non-economic damages are losses that are harder to quantify. These cover the physical and emotional pain and suffering you experience as a result of your accident and injury. Permanent and disabling injuries such as blindness often cause significant distress and disruption to victims’ lives, and they deserve to be fully compensated for all the ways their lives have been negatively impacted.
How Wagner Reese Can Help
If you or a loved one has experienced a loss of vision due to an injury, you may be feeling overwhelmed or unsure of which legal steps to take. Hiring a skilled personal injury attorney can help. Consider Wagner Reese. Our Indiana catastrophic injury lawyers are experienced in handling emotionally difficult and complicated cases.
We treat our clients with compassion and use our deep understanding of the law to your advantage. Whether you’re dealing with a personal injury resulting in traumatic injury or other injuries, we fight on your behalf to ensure you’re receiving the maximum compensation you deserve and need after an accident. Common causes of eye injuries can include workplace accidents, falls, and vehicle collisions, which can lead to partial or total blindness. Our team understands how blindness treated after severe trauma can impact your life, and we are dedicated to securing justice for you. Contact us today for a free consultation of your case.
