When you are involved in a car accident, a rush of adrenaline runs through your body that blocks out some of the pain you are experiencing. This effect can sometimes last for hours or even days, which means you might not even notice the symptoms of a severe injury. Concussions are one particular car accident injury that many people don't realize they have sustained. Concussions are caused by heavy blows to the head that shake the brain inside the skull.

Although some concussion symptoms are fairly obvious, others are more difficult to spot. Signs of a concussion include:

• Difficulty Sleeping
• Headaches
• Dizziness
• Confusion
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Ringing in the Ears
• Fatigue
• Seizures
• Changes in Personality
• Irritability
• Depression
• Sensitivity to Light & Noise
• Slurred Speech

The most noticeable sign of a concussion is when a person keeps losing consciousness. If you hit your head on the windshield or steering wheel and lose consciousness, even for just a few seconds, your brain can suffer severe trauma.

One of the most serious forms of personal injury is a traumatic brain injury (TBI), which can be a severely debilitating and even life-threatening injury. While most of us think about TBIs in relation to contact sports or car accidents, brain injuries actually can happen in ordinary circumstances, according to a recent report from NPR. Indeed, "a simple bump can cause an insidious brain injury," yet patients and their physicians often do not know that a severe personal injury has occurred until it is too late.

To better understand how TBIs can happen in seemingly banal situations but can pose serious consequences for everyday life, we should take a closer look at the report and its findings.

Failing to Diagnose Brain Injuries

Although we do not like to think about it, a seemingly innocuous bump to the head at home can result in a serious injury to the brain. Take for example, a patient who "knocked the top of his head against a wood beam" in his attic. Because he "didn't even get a cut, he forgot about it." However, several months later, he began to experience symptoms of that bump to the head.