A rollover accident is one of the most dangerous types of crashes anyone can experience.
The car doesn’t just hit something and stop.
It flips, tumbles, and spins, often more than once. That violent motion throws your body around inside the vehicle with a level of force that’s hard even to imagine until it happens.
When you rollover in a crash, your body moves with the car because physics doesn’t care if you’re ready for it or not. If you’re not wearing a seatbelt, things get even worse. You could be thrown out of the car through the window or door. If you’re still inside, you’re being slammed against every surface as the vehicle rolls over and over.
Even if you are wearing a seatbelt, the forces pulling and twisting your body can still cause severe damage.
The Kinds of Injuries Victims Might Suffer
When someone survives a rollover accident, they’re rarely walking away without injury. These crashes are notorious for causing some of the worst kinds of trauma.
- People can suffer traumatic brain injuries when their heads hit hard surfaces or are violently shaken.
- Spinal cord damage is another big one, especially when the car flips multiple times and twists the body in unnatural ways. That can lead to paralysis, sometimes partial, sometimes complete.
- There’s also a high chance of internal injuries. When your organs are crushed or slammed during a crash, they can start bleeding inside your body, which isn’t something you can always see right away. That kind of internal bleeding can turn fatal if it’s not caught in time.
- Bones break easily in rollovers, especially arms, legs, ribs, and the collarbone. If a bone shatters the wrong way, it might puncture a lung or an artery.
- There’s also the risk of losing a limb entirely, especially if it gets pinned or crushed under the weight of the car.
- Even more minor injuries, like deep cuts from broken glass or metal, can lead to permanent scarring or severe infections. A lot of these injuries don’t just heal in a few weeks; they can stick with you for years or your entire life.
How Often Rollovers Kill People
You might think rollovers are rare, but when they happen, they’re often deadly. Even though they only make up about 2% of all car crashes, rollovers are responsible for more than a third of all passenger vehicle deaths. That’s a massive number. According to national stats, over 7,600 people die every year in rollover crashes.
Most of these deaths don’t happen in big multi-car pileups either. They occur in single-car crashes. Part of what makes them tragic is that many of them could’ve been avoided with better choices or safer driving conditions. A lot of victims weren’t wearing seatbelts. Some were in vehicles with poor safety ratings for rollover protection.
What the Recovery Looks Like for Survivors
If you make it out alive, the road to recovery after a rollover is long and complicated. You might need surgery, sometimes more than one. Rehab can take months or even years. Some injuries, like brain damage or spinal cord trauma, might never fully heal.
Physical therapy has become a regular part of life. So does pain management. Some people must relearn basic skills, such as walking or speaking clearly.
There’s also a financial cost, especially when medical bills must be sorted. You might not be able to go back to your old job. You might need help from family or caregivers just to get through the day.
For a lot of people, they must build a whole new life from scratch, and that’s arguably one of the hardest things to do, especially with little to no support.
