CAR ACCIDENTS AND NECK PAIN

By Dr. Malcolm Williams
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14 Jan, 2019
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Part 1: What happens to the neck during an accident?

Damaged Vehicle — *Car accident forces impact on car body- how much on human body?*

When someone has been involved in a car accident, at least considering accidents causing less than catastrophic injuries, one of the parts of the body that is most vulnerable is the neck. Airbags, seat belts and head supports have been introduced and refined over the years and have helped reduce the more serious injuries, but do not stop all injuries. The impact of one vehicle into another involves significant forces, even at low speed. Those forces, even though muted in terms of the direct impact into the body, are still large and cause a lot of unexpected and therefor unprotected movement particularly of the head and neck.

Often right after an accident, the person might notice a little tightness in the neck muscles, and not think too much of it. When asked by Emergency Responders or Police, they quite often say something like, "I am okay." However, the next day or even 72 hours later they might be feeling a lot more soreness and tightness. It is common for the pain and tightness to increase typically between 24 to 72 hours after the accident. Some pain and soreness might start to resolve within 3 days, but sometimes the pains continue and can even get worse over the next days and even a lot longer.

The head is approximately the weight of a bowling ball and it sits on top of a relatively small neck structure. When that head weight gets jostled, it pulls on the ligaments and muscles of the neck. This can lead to soft tissue injury which is muscle and ligament damage. This can be strain from excessive movement, or sprain from more forceful movement that causes ligament, tendon or muscle tearing ranging from small partial tears to full tearing away from attachment points.

When the neck has been traumatized, there are different things that happen. First the muscles tighten-up and become stiff and sore. This is the body's attempt to splint and protect the area. Later there can be inflammation and swelling. If the jostling is strong enough, it can also disrupt the alignment of the bones in the neck, and this compounds the level of injury incurred. For the bones to get misaligned, the soft tissue has to be significantly traumatized and the ligaments, which should protect the bones from moving too much, get stretched and allow for more destabilizaion of the involved joints.