Landau Injury Law

When an injured victim of a crash is brought into an emergency room, x-rays are often ordered. However, Herndon Reston area brain injury lawyer Doug Landau notes that while such diagnostic testing, while good for showing broken bones and fractures, does not show many kinds of brain injury. For example, a cyclist or motorist injured in a crash may have a subdural hematoma (sometimes spelled, “haematoma”) which may not show up in the Hospital immediately on a post-accident x-ray.
A Subdural Hematoma is a collection of blood that pools under the dura. Because x-rays do not “see” blood as easily as hard, boney structures, Doug Landau advises that these are sometimes missed. The dura is a relatively tough connective tissue (collagenous) membrane, about the thickness of parchment paper. It is firmly attached to the under surface of the skull, and in the spinal canal, it is separated from the bony structure by a layer of fatty tissue. The inner underside of the dura is applied to a much thinner, transparent membrane, the arachnoid, which overlies the brain and subarachnoid space. This interface is easily separated, forming the subdural space. The subdural space is referred to as a “potential space” because a space is not generally created unless a subdural hematoma or another space occupying mass is formed. (From the Shaken Baby Syndrome Defense site, www.sbsdefense.com /Subdurals.htm)
When a subdural hematoma forms, it is generally an indicator of a broken vein on the underlying surface of the brain. Veins draining the surface of the brain pass through the subarachnoid space and then the dura on their way into the sagittal sinus and other intradural venous sinuses that carry the venous blood eventually to the jugular system. If one or more of these veins that “bridge” the dura are injured, bleeding occurs into the subdural “space,” causing a subdural hematoma (clot). Clots, active bleeding and tears in membranes are often “invisible” to standard x-rays, as they are injuries to “soft tissues” that do not show up on the x-ray film according to brain injury lawyer Doug Landau, of ABRAMS LANDAU, Ltd.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 9:09 pm and is filed under Auto Accidents, Bicycle Accidents, Disability, Injured Athletes, Medical Information, Negligence Cases, Sports Accidents, brain injury. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.