Types of Dog Bites and Dog-Related Injuries

Typically when a dog bites a victim, they will incur some type of injury. The injuries that result from a dot attack can differ.  Moreover, the severity of the injury can vary based on the specific details of the attack. Physical injuries are not the only type of injuries that a victim will be faced with when a dog bite takes place. Psychological injuries often accompany physical injuries, but many times they are ignored or they go untreated.

Physical Dog Bite Injuries

Some of the most serious physical injuries than can occur from a dog bite accident or dog-related incident are:

• Deep puncture wounds or bites that cover larger areas of the site of the injury, oftentimes requiring stitches, surgery or reconstruction surgery
• Lacerations and deep abrasions
• Large amount of blood loss
• Tetanus
• Tissue loss
• Nerve damage
• Facial Fractures
• Scars
• Concussions
• Torn ACL or MCL, broken bones, head injuries and many other type of serious injuries that occur due to the victim running away from an unleashed, vicious dog
• Cellulitis
• C canimorsus infections
• Rabies
• Blood Poisoning
• Muscle damage
• Severe infections

Not all injuries are extremely serious, however, but nonetheless can result in high medical expenses and emotional injury for the victim. These types of injuries include: scrapes, cuts, scratches, abrasion, scars, small punctures, minor infections and bruises.

Non-Economic Damages from a Dog Bite Injury

Physical injuries are very common amongst victims of dog bite accidents. However, “non-economic damages” are also very common due to the stress and trauma of the event. Non-economic damages are difficult to calculate numerically but can have very serious, long and short-term negative repercussions on a person’s mental state. When pursuing non-economic damages, it may be hard to calculate how much money the humiliation and embarrassment of the dog bite accident caused the victim.

Philadelphia dog bite lawyers at the Barrist Firm help victims of dog bite accidents recover both economic damages and non-economic damages such as:

• Pain and suffering
• Emotional distress
• Recurring nightmares
• Anxiety and stress
• Nervousness
• Fearfulness or easily stunned
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Depression
• Mental anguish
• Humiliation
• Embarrassment
• Loss of enjoyment of life
• Fear of dogs
• Fear of the outdoors
• Loss of friends
• Loss of consortium, which is a legal term concerning the effect that the injury has on you and your spouse, including situations such as:
  • The loss of sexual desire or a relationship with your spouse
  • The loss of the physical ability to be intimate with a spouse due to the dog bite injury
  • A disfigurement that makes the non-disfigured spouse no longer attracted to the disfigured spouse
  • A negative, downhill change in the relationship between the spouses after, and because of, the dog bite incident