Car accidents range from deadly to trivial. While the fatal motor vehicle accidents grab the headlines, and rightly so, there are millions of non-fatal crashes in the U.S. and thousands of those crashes in Pennsylvania, and which leave victims who survive, but may never be the same.
A Pennsylvania State Police trooper was struck by his own vehicle at the end of last month, when he stopped to assist a motorist whose car had caught fire. A vehicle, possibly driven by someone not paying sufficient attention to the traffic on the road, swerved to avoid hitting a truck in the traffic lane, but hit the trooper’s unmarked cruiser on the shoulder, which then struck him and caused critical injuries.
The trooper works as a trainer for the state police and travels the state in that capacity. He was returning from a training and stopped to help the motorist with the car fire. When he recovered consciousness after the crash, his first question concerned how the others were doing.
He is expected to have a “long road to recovery.” The report did not indicate the specifics of his injuries, but it is likely he suffered broken bones, injured muscles and organs. When one is struck by a vehicle and thrown about, there is always a significant concern for neck, spinal and traumatic brain injuries.
These types of injuries can cause a variety of problems from memory loss and other functional mental issues to chronic pain and paralysis. Even if you “fully” recover from such an incident, you may find certain muscles and joints no longer work as well as they once did. And you may suffer constant pain that never goes away.
We hope he receives the medical treatment and care he needs to recover, but we know car accidents often leave their victims with injuries that can make that road to recovery very long indeed.