First things first.

Accidents happen. Everyone, including me thinks it'll never happen.

Until it does. You can be a great driver and still end up in the wrong place at the

wrong time.

If it's a big accident:

- Get the police there as quickly as possible. Cooperate with them.

- If you're not injured then do your best to make the scene more safe and to help

those injured. Just don't move the injured people.

- If you are injured be sure to wait for medical attention.

For any accident:

-Record as much information as you can. Use your phone and take pictures of the

scene, all the vehicles and all the license plates.

-Try and get names, addresses, phone numbers and the insurance information of

all the people involved.

-Take notes right away. Describe what happened and how you feel if you were

injured.

-Get to a chiropractor for an evaluation as soon as you can. More on this in a

minute. Call the office if you have questions (833) 243-9355.

-Call your auto insurance agent. More on this later.

The Biggest Mistakes I See People Making

If you have a obvious injuries of blood, broken bones or any other serious traumas

you'll already be on your way to the hospital. Those injuries will be documented.

Many times there are less obvious injuries that go untreated.

Mistake #1 Thinking you're fine.

Do you know they did studies of the actual human beings in cars? They purposely

crashed them and filmed them. They found that almost everybody in a rear end

crash had some sort of injury above 5 mph. They stopped the study at 9 mph

because everyone was hurt.

If you have some sort of neck pain, for example, immediately after the car crash,

then seek help from a chiropractor right away. Pain is an obvious sign that

something was injured. If you only take pain pills and muscle relaxers, the deeper

injuries to the spine won't get treated.

Many times there is no pain right away. Have you ever been traveling down the

road and seen the flashing lights of a police car? You may have noticed a rush of

energy and almost a jittery feeling in your chest. That's the adrenaline being

dumped into your blood stream to get you ready for action. Adrenaline can hide

pain.

You may not notice pain until a day or two later.

I personally got rear ended sitting at a stop sign two blocks from my house. It was a

very low speed rear-end of my vehicle. I had no neck pain and the only damage

was to the nice bumper of my car. I was still injured though. My wife is a

chiropractor and I immediately drove home and had her check out my neck. My

neck was misaligned completely out of the ordinary for me. Remember, I had no

pain.

Injuries to the spine can sometimes be very deceptive. The very inner parts of the

spine don't have pain nerves. The spine can also bend and twist to try and prevent

you from feeling pain. The odds of you completely being 100% fine after an accident in a vehicle is very low. There aren't any gold stars for trying to tough it out. You will only be hurting yourself.

Mistake #2 Don't wait to seek treatment.

I think I set the record for seeking treatment within minutes of the accident. The fastest I've seen a patient after an accident is one hour. The longer you wait, the more scar tissue can build up. This can create long term permanent problems that are much harder to help and may only be manageable instead of fixable. The injuries are present and what you do now has a potentially big impact on your future.

It is best for you to get checked out by a chiropractor as soon as you can.

Chiropractors look at biomechanical problems more in depth than most other

doctors. When my little accident rearranged the bones and function of my neck,

there is no way any other professional would have found that. Many times a

medical doctor or physical therapist are great to have on a team, but they don't do

what a chiropractor can do. We all have our specialties.

Let me back up for a second. In an accident, there can be a substantial amount of

instantaneous G forces acting on your body. If you don't see the accident coming

your muscles don't have the opportunity to try and protect your spine. Your head

weighs roughly 10-12 pounds (bowling ball size). An accident can make you look

like a bobble head doll. There was an actual research project that filmed, in super

high speed, real people being crashed at low speeds. Your neck can be injured in

milliseconds. If there are individual spinal joints injured, which is often the case,

the most qualified person to diagnose them and fix them is a chiropractor. That is

why your insurance company classifies a chiropractor as a specialist.

Not all injuries will heal to 100%.

A 15 year follow up study was published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery,

Nov 1996.

What the researchers found:

-70% of patients still had symptoms 15 years after a whiplash injury.

-28% of them actually got worse over time.

-At the time of the crash, if the patient was over 40 y.o. only 5% were pain-free

after 15 years. I can tell you more about why that would be if you ask me in the

office.

Not surprisingly, after the insurance claim was finished the patients symptoms

didn't suddenly disappear. What that tells you is that there are long term

consequences to injuries.

The longer you wait the higher the probability you will develop bad scar tissue and

a chronic problem.

Mistake #3 Don't think the insurance companies are on your side, no matter how nice they are.

Please don't take a settlement from an insurance company without talking to your

doctor or lawyer. I have seen more than a few patients taken advantage of.

Prevention Is Your Best Bet

Living in Utah has been a very interesting experience behind the wheel. I've driven

in nearly all 50 states, even Hawaii. There is a reason Utah is always ranked as one

of the worst places to drive in the United States. The lack of respect for another

humans life is astonishing here. Every day I think I've seen it all, and sure enough

some one does something even more reckless.

Of all the patients I've seen in an accident, none of them would like to go through

it again. It's not worth the time, money or suffering. If you cause an accident, you

definitely won't want to do it again. Prevention is definitely the best option when

driving. Always try and avoid an accident. Here are a few reminders.

Here's what I tell my own teenage drivers.

-Don't tailgate. If someone in front of you has to hit the brakes and you rear end

them. You are now responsible for all the damage. People have forgotten the 2

second rule. In Utah, it is about 1/2 second at best.

-Don't speed. Speed is the number one factor in taking a small accident and

making it a major one. The human body hates sudden, dramatic changes in

velocity. Injury rates skyrocket. The worst is when someone is stopped at a light and

is rear-ended by someone going 40-50+ mph. (Often looking at their phone)

-Don't run red lights. There is no place you need to be in that big of a hurry. My

wife saw a horribly violent accident close to my house because a van ran a red light.

When the light turns green, don't be the first one in to the intersection. Always

assume someone is running a red light.

-Don't trust your GPS. Know where you are going so you are in the correct lane

before SIRI tells you at the last second you need to be turning.

-If you make a mistake, fix it on the next block. Swerving in front of some one at

the last second is reckless. If you miss your turn, just accept the responsibility and

go to the next block. It's better to be a few minutes late than never arriving at all.

-If your actions cause someone else to have to brake or react, you made a mistake.

Don't do it again. We all make mistakes, just learn from them. You are trusting a

random stranger not to hit you and maybe kill you. That's irresponsible and dumb.

Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.

-Mass matters. Nearly every news story about an accident that involved a truck and

a car, the truck driver walks away and the car driver dies or is seriously injured.

When it's snowing this list is even more important. It's easy to get wrapped up in the craziness of traffic. If everyone is just a little more kind and patient to their fellow drivers, we can all have a better day.

Just remember:

1. Get help as soon as you can.

2. Call the office if you have questions (833) 243-9355

-Dr. Altman