What injuries are realistic in this situation?

sveltskye said:

The main character in my story sustains injuries in a car crash that happens off page before the story commences. These injuries get her in the hospital and cause her to be pulled out of college and taken home by her (admittedly overprotective) parents, but a couple days later she is able to walk down the street and swing dance at a club. Right now I have her with a broken arm, but I'm wondering if there's any other injuries that would be plausible in this scenario?

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Details of the car crash might get you more help.

Rabe...

Well, she might have a pump on the head and a very mild concussion where she needs to take it easy for a day or so and she shouldn't be dancing, but does anyway.

She might have had a shoulder dislocation but now that's fixed and she's OK.

This one's kinda hard. She really shouldn't be dancing swing if she was hurt in any manner other than a couple of bruises.

Back injuries are completely unpredictable. My brother was in a car accident and walked away. Next day he woke up paralized from the waist down. He was rushed to the hospital and he had some pinched nerve. A few drugs and twists from the chiropracter and he was fine, though he had to undergo a month of the chiropracter twisting on him.

Back, Spinal, and neck injuries can all pretty much be tailored made to do whatever you need. THen there is the all inclusive bump on the head which can do anything from short term memory loss to siezures to anuerisms and death. In fact, the bump on the head can be a ticking time bomb, creating a clot that just sits until another bump releases it into the bloodstream giving you a stroke which can paralize, disable part of the brain, or kill you

Mel...

sveltskye said:

The main character in my story sustains injuries in a car crash that happens off page before the story commences. These injuries get her in the hospital and cause her to be pulled out of college and taken home by her (admittedly overprotective) parents, but a couple days later she is able to walk down the street and swing dance at a club. Right now I have her with a broken arm, but I'm wondering if there's any other injuries that would be plausible in this scenario?

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She's probably going to be too stiff and sore to even think about swing dancing that soon after the car accident. If she was the driver, then she'll likely be sore from her body making contact with the steering wheel and/or the airbags deploying.

Don't forget about whiplash. That can show up days or even a month later. I ended up with a ruptured cervical disk and the two disks above and below damaged. I didn't feel any pain for nearly a month after the accident.

I don't think a person coud swing dance a few days after a broken arm. Just the bruising alone from a car crash makes walking and moving pretty painful for a few weeks. A broken bone takes on average about 4-6 weeks to heal strongly enough to use a bit, but there is still weakness and you need to build it up... The muscle wastes around the break-- the whole limb shrinks noticeably.

Over-protective parents can take her out of college any time.

One thing would be that she was hospitalized briefly "for observation", and aside from that has minor cuts, bruises and bumps. But she's going to be stiff and sore, not dancing up a storm.

If the air bags went off, she's been punched in the face. Black eyes and bruising is very common.

I agree with those who say she wouldn't be dancing. I was in a pretty serious car accident right after I got my learner's permit (so an active, healthy 15 year old). I wasn't "hurt" per se (examined by EMTs at the scene and sent home, never even went to the hospital), but I was pretty sore. I went back to school with no probem, but I had a dance performance a full week later. I got through it, but it was quite painful. Swing dancing after a day or so? Ouch!

Depends on the accident. If I was injured I wouldn't want to be dancing. Some times people can go through gnarly wrecks pretty well unscathed though.

Once a car driving head on in my lane caused me to run off the road at 50 MPH. My car went down an embankment, scraping several trees which broke off the side view mirrors and shattered the windows. It stopped, resting against a huge tree, mired in mud.

We walked away. Not just that, after the car was yanked out the lights still worked, it pulled to the right, but the officer said we could drive it home if we wanted so we did. Aside from making me scared to drive on windy tree lined roads at night, I suffered zero injuries. Not a single bruise or any soreness. My passenger got a tiny cut on his butt from sitting back down on a crumb of glass after the accident. That was it. It looked so bad the officer told us he thought he was going to have to deal with a fatality when he saw it. We were on our way to a party at the time, and just went to the party about 3 hours late (I even danced!)

What saved us in that accident was that the mud basically swallowed the car and cushioned it to a stop. If the trees had been taking the impact....

Another time I was rear ended on the freeway. We stopped and exchanged info, I felt jittery but otherwise fine and kept driving home. Her car was so screwed up she couldn't drive it (All hail vintage mercedes!)

About 20 minutes later I felt the most excruciating pain in my head and neck. It felt like my head was about to fall off and I couldn't look right or left. Turns out I fractured the atlas and axis vertebrae in my neck. I walked around like that for two weeks until x-rays finally came out clear enough to show that they were broken and I am very lucky to not be paralyzed or dead. It still gives me major problems years later.

Canotila said:

What saved us in that accident was that the mud basically swallowed the car and cushioned it to a stop. If the trees had been taking the impact....

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Not to hijack the thread, but that makes a lot of sense. Your accident description sounds almost identical to mine, except that in my case the car started bouncing off the trees (even uprooted one!) before it ever hit the ground.

Okay, I retract my earlier statements. If something cushiony takes the impact, then sure, let her go dancing! Not sure how that will gel with the parents pulling her out of school though...

When I got in a carcrash i was holding my brother close to me so he wouldn't get hurt hunching over him,(always leave a baby in the carseat,even if their screaming in your ear...) and it pulled my shoulders and got a concusion when my head slammed into the back of my seat, had to go see the doctor for about two months and go to physical therapy. I had as well sprung my ankle at that time had been broken a few months before. It was very painful and I would get earsplitting headaches constantly from the slightest touch on my skull for a few weeks.