It can be easy to take your eyes for granted — until they’re injured. Eye injuries can occur in a variety of ways, but no matter how they come about, they are practically guaranteed to bring victims’ lives to a crashing halt.
An eye injury quickly makes you aware of the impossible nature of performing the simplest tasks around the house without your sense of vision, let alone doing things like driving a car or fulfilling your job tasks.
When an eye injury is permanent, you’ll likely be left with more severe long-term impacts. However, even when an eye injury eventually results in a full recovery, its treatment and recovery period are bound to have a significant impact on your finances.
Therefore, if you’ve recently suffered an eye injury, it’s wise to evaluate how these kinds of injuries happen, how they’re treated, and how you can get help recovering compensation.
What Are Common Causes of Eye Injuries?
As mentioned earlier, the eyes can be injured in countless ways. That is largely due to the fact that they lack much in the way of protection in the event of an accident.
Some of the most common types of accidents that lead to eye injuries include the following:
- Car accidents
- Workplace accidents
- Slip and fall accidents
- Sports injuries
- Assault
- Defective products
- Medical malpractice
Even with the variety of situations listed above, most eye injuries are caused in one of two ways. One involves some sort of foreign material entering the eye, such as dirt, a chemical, or some other substance, often resulting in scratches or burns that can then lead to additional complications, such as infections.
The other most common type of eye injury involves direct injury to part of the eye, such as the eye being punctured or sustaining trauma from an external source.
What Are Some Examples of Eye Injuries?
If you experience an eye injury, you might be primarily concerned with the symptoms you’re experiencing. Though those are important to understand, knowing the type of injury you are facing is crucial in how it should be treated and your likely long-term outcome.
With that said, some of the most common types of eye injuries diagnosed by medical professionals are as follows:
- Corneal abrasions (scratches on the surface of the eye)
- Eyeball punctures
- Eyeball lacerations
- Cuts
- Chemical burns
- Detached retinas
- Orbital fractures
- Subconjunctival hemorrhages
- Foreign items stuck in the eye
- Eye infections
Should you injure your eye(s) at any time, it’s vital that you seek medical attention as soon as possible. Ignoring the injury or waiting to see if it heals with time puts you at risk of further harm.
What Are the Potential Signs of an Eye Injury?
The eyes are highly sensitive, which means even a minor injury can result in acute pain. That said, pain isn’t the only sign that something is wrong.
Some of the most common signs of an eye injury include such things as:
- Changes in vision (difficulty seeing/blurred vision)
- Redness
- Altered appearance of the eyes
- Swelling around the eyes/eyelids
- Watery, itchy eyes
- Irritation
- A feeling that something is stuck in the eye
- Stinging or burning
- Light sensitivity
- Inability to open the eyes
As eye injuries can take so many forms, the symptoms you experience can and will likely vary. Nevertheless, if you notice sudden changes in your vision or the appearance of your eyes, you should seek a medical professional’s opinion as soon as possible.
What Are Some Eye Injury Treatment Options?
Most eye injuries are first diagnosed through an initial exam, in which a doctor may use a numbing agent to provide temporary relief as they inspect the eyes for signs of damage. The exact treatment regimen chosen for an eye injury will depend on the type and severity of the damage.
Minor eye injury treatment may involve actions such as:
- Flushing the eye
- Using cold compresses
- Applying antibiotic ointment(s)
- Wearing an eye patch
- Taking over-the-counter pain medication
However, even a minor injury can lead to severe pain and significant medical bills, and it’s also likely that you’ll be unable to work, drive, or perform daily tasks for up to a week. If you experience complications such as an infection or lingering symptoms, healing times may take even longer.
For a severe eye injury, treatment will likely be more invasive. Chemical burns, punctures, and other serious eye conditions often involve a higher risk of partial or complete loss of vision, therefore requiring surgical intervention and much longer healing times.
What Are the Costs Associated With an Eye Injury?
A minor eye injury can still garner extensive costs. Even if it is the result of an accident, you’ll likely have to pay for a trip to the emergency room (which might also lead to ambulance bills) alongside medications, follow-up appointments, and any additional treatment costs, such as surgery or imaging.
Most of the time, though, the greatest financial blow is not associated with the costs of treatment but instead with the impact on your standard of living. When an eye injury leaves you unable to work or drive a car, you’ll likely be left struggling to pay your usual bills.
If you can’t drive, you’ll be forced to pay for transportation or delivery services to perform simple tasks like purchasing groceries or getting to doctor’s appointments. Should an eye injury lead to permanent vision impairment, you may not be able to return to work at all, completely uprooting your financial stability.
How Can You Recover Compensation For an Eye Injury?
The silver lining to all of these details is that many types of eye injuries leave victims eligible for compensation. That said, an insurance company is unlikely to let you know that they can be held responsible for your injury costs.
If you’ve suffered an eye injury, it’s wise to speak with a personal injury lawyer as soon as possible. They will examine the circumstances of your injury and identify whether anyone can be held liable. If they can build a personal injury case, they’ll assess your financial losses and work to negotiate a settlement with the responsible party.
Compensation for an eye injury can come from many sources. If you were injured in a truck accident, for example, a lawyer could seek compensation through the trucker or trucking company’s insurance policy. After a workplace accident, they could fight to help you recover fair compensation through a workers’ compensation policy.
Call an Experienced Atlanta Eye Injury Lawyer Today For a Free Initial Consultation
If you have suffered from a recent eye injury in Atlanta, GA, you may qualify for compensation — but the time to take action is limited.
Turn to Malone Law, an Atlanta medical malpractice firm that has successfully recovered compensation for countless injured clients throughout the area. Call today to schedule a free consultation with an experienced Atlanta medical malpractice lawyer.