How can crush injuries impact your health?

Crush injuries can happen to anyone working around heavy machinery, equipment, or even just heavy items. Though some fields like construction have a higher rate of crush injuries than others, this potential problem could end up altering the life of any worker who suffers from a crush injury incident.

But how exactly do crush injuries impact your health? Do they have short-term effects only, or can these effects stretch out for months or even years?

What determines a crush injury's impact?

Medline Plus discusses crush injuries and how they can impact your future. While crush injuries have obvious and pronounced short-term effects, the long-term issues serve as the biggest potential life-changer.

The outcome of a crush injury depends on what part of the body ends up pinned, the force of the weight pinning it, how quickly the pinning occurred and other various factors like the overall health of the victim.

Potential repercussions

For example, when dealing with a foot crush injury, issues like potential future amputation and gangrene will often rank as the top concerns. When larger areas of the body undergo crush damage, it can result in catastrophic organ failure or even blood poisoning and sepsis, along with cell death and oxygen deprivation leading to necrosis.

Of course, when dealing with issues as severe as organ failure or amputation, you can bet that the long-lasting health impacts can go on for months or even years with ease. Victims may struggle to retain their jobs or keep up with medical bills. After healing somewhat, it is also often harder to find a new job. This is why many victims will opt for compensation.