A broken tailbone usually happens during a slip and fall accident or a car accident (due to falling flat on the tailbone or when the person is thrown up in the air). Broken tailbone injuries are quite painful and may make your daily activities (sitting, lying down, sleeping, or bending over) challenging. You’ll need some form of pain management regimen or surgery, or both, and a long period of rest and recovery. If you injured your tailbone in a slip and fall (or car accident), besides medical help, you should seek legal help from a New York slip and fall attorney.
How to Recognize a Broken Tailbone
Many people tend to quickly get up after they fall, feeling embarrassed. But, depending on the fall and on the severity of your injuries, you shouldn’t rush to get up and risk to cause even bigger damage. If your tailbone is injured, it will manifest in your posture, you’ll feel numbness and later harsh pain.
What is important that you seek medical help immediately after a slip and fall injury. The examination will rule out potential life-threatening injuries and you’ll get proper treatment. Another important thing is that you’ll have your injuries documented. This will play a big role in determining the validity of your claim, and how much it is worth.
Here are the broken tailbone symptoms:
- Pain in your posterior area
- Numbness that spreads down to your feet
- Pain when trying to sit, lie down, crouch, or squat
- Loss of bladder control or pain when emptying your bowels
- Leg weakness
- Lower back pain
Should You See a Doctor After a Broken Tailbone?
The medical term for trauma or injury to the coccyx or tailbone is called coccydynia. Any injury to the tailbone should be diagnosed by a physician using a radiograph or X-ray; the doctor will ask you to stand and sit, and then they’ll inject an anesthetic into this area to pinpoint the pain root for precise treatment.
Women are more susceptible to tailbone injuries due to the way the female body anatomy. Women have a broader pelvis, which exposes the tailbone. Also, elderly people are more likely to slip and fall and get tailbone injuries because of their fragile bones.
Relieving Pain From Broken Tailbone and Injury
Treating a broken tailbone involves putting icepacks to the area, using a donut pillow that will reduce the pressure off the tailbone when sitting, stool softener to reduce pay that may occur when the patient is reliving themselves, us of naproxen and ibuprofen, local injections to numb the pain or use chiropractic adjustments.
A bruised tailbone may heal within four to eight weeks or more. If a tailbone is fractured, the recovery can last more than eight weeks. Broken tailbones pain that can last for a year or longer. In some cases, the patient may need steroid injections or surgery. Such treatment may take six months or more before the painful symptoms begin to improve. Although it’s rare, some people who suffered tailbone injuries never fully recover.
Settlements for Tailbone Injury
The average settlement for tailbone injury depends on numerous factors, such as the negligence factor. Was there partial negligence that can be attached to your part? How the injury impacts your ability to work and enjoy life, how many weeks or months you are supposed to be absent from work to recover, whether the other party has insurance, the compensation caps, and so on.
Lower settlements usually pay off about $20,000 and the claim may go as high as t $80,000. However, every case is different.
If you have recently fallen and injured your tailbone, it’s time to seek legal help. Your attorney will examine your case and depending on where you have fallen, you might have a case.
If your incident happened in a public place such as a supermarket, post office, or a public institution because of a faulty floor, stairs, or wet floor, you have the right to file a lawsuit against the owner.
The owner of the place has the responsibility to warn clients that there is some sort of risk when walking on the floor or stairs.
Our attorneys at Cellino Law will help you file the lawsuit and seek the settlement; the insurance company won’t be eager to pay a high amount, our lawyers will make sure to negotiate until you get the needed compensation claim. Cellino Law team is here to evaluate your case completely free of charge.
