Long Island Facial Injury
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Causes

How Facial Injuries Happen in Car Accidents

The face is one of the most vulnerable parts of the body in a car accident because it is exposed and close to the most dangerous surfaces inside a vehicle. In a serious collision, the head and face are subject to extreme forces in a fraction of a second — and the structures that cause facial injuries are often the same safety features designed to prevent other harm.

Airbag deployment is one of the leading causes of facial injury in frontal crashes. While airbags save lives, they deploy at speeds of 100 to 200 mph and generate enormous force against the driver’s and front passenger’s face. The impact can cause orbital fractures, nasal fractures, mandible fractures, deep facial lacerations, and corneal abrasions. For more on airbag injury claims, see our Long Island airbag injury lawyer page.

Broken windshield glass produces razor-sharp shards that can lacerate the face, eyelids, forehead, and lips at high velocity. Even tempered glass, which is designed to crumble rather than shatter into large shards, can cause multiple deep lacerations requiring stitches and leaving permanent scars.

Steering wheel impact is a significant cause of jaw fractures, mandible injuries, dental avulsions, and forehead lacerations, particularly in crashes where the driver is not wearing a seatbelt or where the airbag does not deploy at the correct threshold. Dashboard impact affects passengers whose head and face strike the dash in frontal or rollover crashes, causing orbital fractures and forehead lacerations.

Seatbelt strap lacerations occur when the shoulder belt rides up across the face or neck during a crash, creating a deep, linear laceration on the chin, jaw, or lower face that often leaves a permanent scar. Deployed sun visors and interior trim pieces that break loose in a crash can also strike the face, causing lacerations and contusions. For a full overview of how facial injuries fit within the broader car accident landscape on Long Island, see our car accident lawyer page.

Types of Facial Injuries in Car Accidents

Car accidents produce a wide spectrum of facial injuries, ranging from lacerations requiring stitches to complex fractures requiring surgery. Understanding the specific injury type matters both medically and legally — each injury has distinct treatment requirements and implications for the serious injury threshold under Insurance Law §5102(d).

Facial lacerations are among the most common facial injuries in car accidents. They range from superficial cuts to deep full-thickness lacerations requiring multiple layers of stitches. Lacerations on the face often leave permanent scars due to the tension and movement of facial muscles, sun exposure, and the nature of wound healing. Even well-repaired lacerations may require subsequent scar revision procedures. A permanent visible scar qualifies as significant disfigurement under Insurance Law §5102(d).

Orbital fractures (blowout fractures of the eye socket) occur when blunt force to the eye or surrounding area causes one or more of the thin bones forming the floor or medial wall of the orbit to fracture. Symptoms include double vision, sunken eye appearance, numbness below the eye, and restricted eye movement. Treatment may require orbital reconstruction surgery, and permanent changes to facial appearance and vision are common.

Nasal fractures are the most common facial fracture in car accident trauma. The nose’s position and prominence make it highly vulnerable to impact. Nasal fractures may cause visible deformity, difficulty breathing, and chronic sinus issues. Septoplasty and rhinoplasty are sometimes required to restore appearance and function.

Mandible (jaw) fractures and TMJ injury (temporomandibular joint dysfunction) are serious facial injuries that affect eating, speaking, and daily function. Jaw fractures may require intermaxillary fixation (jaw wiring) for weeks and surgical repair with titanium plates and screws. TMJ injury from crash forces can cause permanent pain, clicking, limited mouth opening, and chronic headaches. Permanent TMJ limitation satisfies the Insurance Law §5102(d) threshold as a permanent consequential limitation of a body organ or member.

Dental injuries are extremely common in frontal crashes involving steering wheel and dashboard impact. Chipped or broken teeth, avulsed (knocked-out) teeth, jaw dislocations, and dental root fractures all require prompt treatment. Dental implants, crowns, and bridges may be necessary long-term solutions, and the bite relationship (occlusion) may be permanently altered. Cheekbone (zygomatic) fractures cause visible facial asymmetry and may require open reduction and internal fixation surgery.

Forehead contusions and lacerations from dashboard or windshield impact frequently cause permanent scarring, particularly when lacerations extend into the scalp or eyebrow region. Facial nerve injury — damage to branches of the facial nerve (CN VII) — can cause partial or complete facial paralysis resembling Bell’s palsy, causing one side of the face to droop, with inability to close the eye, smile evenly, or raise the eyebrow. Facial nerve injury from trauma can be permanent and profoundly disfiguring.

Disfigurement and Reconstructive Surgery

Many facial injuries from car accidents require not just emergency treatment but a lengthy series of reconstructive procedures. The reconstructive process can span months or years and carries significant costs that must be fully accounted for in a damages claim.

Facial plastic surgery and reconstruction may be required for complex lacerations, orbital fractures, cheekbone fractures, and nasal fractures. Initial repair focuses on function and wound closure; subsequent scar revision procedures aim to minimize the visibility of permanent scarring. Multiple surgeries are often required to achieve the best possible outcome, and even optimal surgical results leave permanent marks.

Skin grafting is used for severe lacerations where the wound cannot be closed by primary repair alone. Donor skin is taken from another part of the body, leaving a secondary scar at the harvest site in addition to the facial scar. Skin grafts rarely match the color and texture of surrounding facial skin, and the resulting appearance is often permanently different from the patient’s pre-accident face.

Dental implants are used to replace avulsed or extracted teeth. Implant placement is a multi-stage process involving bone grafting (if needed), implant fixture placement, healing time, and crown placement — a process that can take six months to two years and cost $3,000 to $6,000 per tooth. Jaw fixation and wiring for mandible fractures requires patients to subsist on a liquid diet for weeks, significantly affecting quality of life and causing substantial weight loss.

TMJ treatment is often a long-term process involving physical therapy, mouth guards (splints), pain management, and sometimes surgery. TMJ dysfunction from car accident trauma can persist for years or become permanent, affecting the ability to eat, speak, and sleep.

The long healing timelines involved in facial injury recovery — often 12 to 24 months or longer — mean that a full picture of permanent scarring and residual impairment may not be available until well after the accident. Our firm works with your treating physicians and reconstructive surgeons to document the permanent nature of your injuries as your recovery progresses, so that your claim reflects the true, final extent of your disfigurement. Permanent scarring affects quality of life in ways that extend beyond physical appearance: reduced self-confidence, avoidance of social situations, difficulty in professional environments that involve public-facing roles, and the psychological burden of a permanently altered appearance.

New York Serious Injury Threshold — Insurance Law §5102(d)

New York operates under a no-fault insurance system. Before you can sue the at-fault driver for pain and suffering and other non-economic damages, you must establish that you suffered a “serious injury” as defined by Insurance Law §5102(d). Facial injuries from car accidents are particularly well-positioned to satisfy this threshold.

The statute lists “significant disfigurement” as one of the enumerated serious injury categories. Permanent visible facial scarring directly falls within this category, making it one of the clearest and most compelling threshold qualifiers in New York car accident law. New York courts apply an objective standard: would a reasonable person viewing the plaintiff find the scar significantly disfiguring? Highly visible scars — on the cheeks, jaw, forehead, around the eyes, on the chin, or across the nose — consistently satisfy the threshold. The color contrast of the scar against surrounding skin, its location in the face’s primary visual field, and its size all bear on whether it meets the standard.

Scars that are covered by hair or clothing are generally weaker threshold claims, but can still qualify if they are large, prominently placed, or involve significant disfigurement when the area is visible. Scars on the scalp that are visible when hair is short, or scars on the neck that are visible in normal clothing, have been found to satisfy the threshold in appropriate cases.

TMJ permanent injury satisfies the threshold as a “permanent consequential limitation of use of a body organ or member.” New York courts have recognized that permanent TMJ dysfunction causing measurable restriction of jaw movement — documented by treating providers with objective measurements — qualifies as a serious injury. Documentation of the limitation’s permanence and objectivity is critical. Cases involving only subjective complaints of jaw pain without objective physical findings are vulnerable to threshold dismissal; cases with documented, measured restriction of jaw opening and treating physician opinions about permanence are substantially stronger.

Our firm works closely with your treating oral surgeons, plastic surgeons, and neurologists to ensure that your medical records document the permanent nature of your facial injuries in the specific language required by §5102(d) case law. Medical records that describe injuries in general terms without addressing permanence, causation, or functional limitation create threshold vulnerabilities that defense counsel will exploit. We address these documentation issues proactively throughout your treatment.

What Compensation Can You Recover?

Facial injury victims on Long Island may recover both economic and non-economic damages in a personal injury lawsuit against the at-fault driver.

Economic damages include all measurable financial losses: past and future surgery costs (facial reconstruction, orbital repair, scar revision, skin grafting); dental bills and the cost of implants, crowns, and orthodontic treatment to address bite changes caused by the accident; TMJ treatment costs including physical therapy, mouth guard fabrication, pain management procedures, and TMJ surgery; pain management and medication costs; lost wages and lost earning capacity (particularly significant if your occupation involves client-facing work); and all other out-of-pocket expenses related to your injuries and recovery.

Permanent disfigurement damages are among the highest categories of non-economic recovery in New York personal injury law. A permanent visible scar on a person’s face — the part of the body most visible to the world — carries significant weight with juries and insurers. The value of disfigurement damages reflects the lifelong nature of the injury: unlike a fracture that heals, a permanent facial scar is a daily reminder of the accident and affects every social and professional interaction for the rest of the plaintiff’s life.

Psychological counseling for body image issues, social anxiety, and depression caused by visible facial scarring is also a recoverable element of damages. Research consistently shows that visible disfigurement — particularly on the face — is associated with elevated rates of depression, social withdrawal, reduced quality of life, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychological treatment costs are economic damages; the pain and suffering associated with living with the psychological consequences of facial disfigurement are non-economic damages. Our firm builds both components into your full damages claim.

Proving Fault in a Facial Injury Case

Facial injury claims require not only proof of injury and damages but also proof that the other driver’s negligence caused the accident. New York law provides multiple avenues for establishing fault.

Vehicle and Traffic Law §1180 prohibits driving at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent under existing conditions. A driver who was speeding at the time of the crash that caused your facial injuries has violated this statute, establishing negligence per se — the violation of a traffic law is itself evidence of negligence without requiring independent proof of unreasonable conduct.

Vehicle and Traffic Law §1141 governs the duty of drivers making left turns to yield to oncoming traffic. Left-turn collisions are among the most common crash patterns causing facial injuries because the forces involved are frequently lateral or oblique — directing the occupant’s face toward the door, window, or A-pillar. A VTL §1141 violation establishes negligence per se for the turning driver.

CPLR §1411 establishes New York’s pure comparative negligence rule. Your recovery is reduced proportionally by your own percentage of fault, but you are not barred from recovery even if you were partially at fault. Defense insurers will attempt to assign comparative fault to you — arguing, for example, that you were not wearing a seatbelt, or that you contributed to the collision. Our firm builds the evidentiary record to accurately reflect true fault allocation and resist inflated comparative fault arguments. For additional discussion of VTL violations and their role in Long Island car accident cases, see our car accident lawyer page.

Statute of Limitations for Facial Injury Claims

Under CPLR §214, you have three years from the date of the car accident to file a personal injury lawsuit in New York. This deadline applies to facial injury claims — lacerations, fractures, TMJ injury, dental injuries, disfigurement — arising from car accidents between private parties.

If a government entity is potentially liable — for example, a municipality whose roadway defect contributed to the crash, or a public transit vehicle involved in the collision — General Municipal Law §50-e requires a Notice of Claim to be filed within 90 days of the accident. Failure to file a timely Notice of Claim bars the claim against the government entity. This 90-day window passes quickly, and many accident victims are unaware of this requirement until it is too late.

For wrongful death claims arising from fatal car accidents, the statute of limitations is two years from the date of death under EPTL §5-4.1. These deadlines are absolute — a case filed one day late is permanently barred regardless of the strength of the underlying claim.

While three years may seem like ample time, do not wait. Surveillance footage from accident scene businesses is overwritten within 30 days. Eyewitness memories fade rapidly. Vehicle damage evidence may be repaired or destroyed. Early legal action preserves the evidence needed to prove fault and build the strongest possible facial injury claim.