“But the CT Scan Was Normal”: Traumatic Brain Injuries After Michigan Car Accidents

You walked away from the crash. Everyone told you how lucky you were. The emergency room ran a CT scan, found nothing alarming, and sent you home with discharge papers and ibuprofen.

Then, over the following weeks, things started going sideways in small ways. You left the stove on. Twice. You lost the thread of conversations mid-sentence. You were exhausted by two in the afternoon for no reason you could name, the ringing in your ear didn’t stop, and your patience — normally fine — kept running out on the people you love. If this sounds familiar, you may be dealing with a traumatic brain injury. And you would be far from alone in having one that nobody caught at the hospital.

You Don’t Have to Hit Your Head to Injure Your Brain

This is the part that surprises people most. A TBI doesn’t require your skull striking anything, and it doesn’t require getting knocked out. In a violent collision, your head whips forward and back in a fraction of a second, and the brain — which floats inside the skull — moves with that force. The rapid acceleration and deceleration alone can stretch and damage brain tissue.

Standard emergency room imaging is designed to find things that kill you tonight: bleeds, fractures, swelling. A CT scan can be completely normal while the microscopic injury driving your symptoms goes undetected. “Your scan was clear” means you don’t need brain surgery. It does not mean your brain is uninjured.

The Symptoms That Get Dismissed

Brain injury symptoms are easy to explain away one at a time, which is exactly why they go unreported. Taken together, the pattern matters:

• Memory lapses. Leaving appliances on, missing appointments, walking out the door without things you need.
• Trouble focusing. Word-finding problems, losing your place in conversations.
• Fatigue that hits like a wall, especially after mental effort.
• Persistent headaches and dizziness, often with sensitivity to light and noise.
• Ringing in the ears (tinnitus) or a feeling of fullness in one ear.
• Jaw pain, clicking, or locking. TMJ injuries frequently travel with head and neck trauma from a crash.
• Mood and sleep changes. Sleep disruption, irritability, anxiety, or a shorter fuse than the person you were before.

Often it’s a spouse, coworker, or close friend who notices first. If someone who knows you well says you haven’t been yourself since the crash, take that seriously — and say it out loud to your doctor.

The Treatment Path Matters Twice

Following through on medical care after a suspected TBI matters for the obvious reason: getting better. It matters a second time because in an injury claim, your medical records are the story. Symptoms you never mentioned to a provider effectively didn’t happen, as far as an insurance company is concerned.

In Michigan, the road often runs from your primary care provider through physical therapy for the neck and jaw, sometimes osteopathic manipulative medicine — a hands-on treatment approach DOs practice, and Michigan trains more of them than almost anywhere — and, critically, a neuropsychological evaluation. Neuropsych testing is the closest thing there is to objective measurement of cognitive injury: hours of standardized testing that can document memory, attention, and processing deficits in a way an insurer can’t wave off as “subjective complaints.” Michigan also has dedicated brain injury rehabilitation programs that most people don’t know exist until they need one.

Tell every provider every symptom, every visit, even the ones that feel small or embarrassing. Keep a simple daily journal of symptoms and what they cost you — the meeting you couldn’t follow, the workout you couldn’t finish, the night you didn’t sleep. Follow the referrals. Gaps and omissions in treatment become the other side’s best argument — the same principle that runs through our checklist on what to do after a Michigan car accident.

Who Pays for the Testing and Treatment

Under Michigan’s no-fault insurance system, your own Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage pays for reasonably necessary care after a crash — including neuropsychological testing and brain injury rehabilitation — up to the coverage level you selected on your policy, regardless of who caused the collision. That matters, because the evaluations that document a TBI are expensive, and families sometimes skip them assuming they will pay out of pocket. You generally won’t — but PIP has its own paperwork and deadlines, including a written application that generally must be filed within one year of the accident (MCL 500.3145).

How Michigan Law Treats an Injury Nobody Can See

To recover pain and suffering damages from an at-fault driver, Michigan generally requires a “serious impairment of body function” (MCL 500.3135) — an objectively manifested impairment of an important body function that affects your general ability to lead your normal life. Cognitive function absolutely qualifies as an important body function. The fight is usually over proof. Our companion piece on third-party claims against at-fault drivers explains the threshold in depth.

Michigan law also contains a provision written for exactly this situation. For closed-head injuries, MCL 500.3135(2)(a)(ii) provides that the threshold question goes to a jury if a licensed allopathic or osteopathic physician who regularly diagnoses or treats closed-head injuries testifies under oath that there may be a serious neurological injury. In plain terms: the right medical testimony can keep an insurer from getting a brain injury case thrown out on the argument that the scans looked fine.

That’s where the documentation earns its keep: neuropsychological test results, consistent treatment records, work records showing changed performance, and statements from the people who watch you live your life. Insurance companies defend brain injury claims by pointing at normal scans, pre-existing conditions, treatment gaps, and social media posts where you look fine for one photographed moment. A well-built claim answers all of it before it’s raised.

One more thing worth knowing: brain injury symptoms that persist a year or more after a crash are often treated by providers as long-term, and some deficits may prove permanent. If that is what your doctors are telling you, the value of your claim needs to account for a lifetime — not just the bills to date. Settling early, before the full picture is clear, is one of the most expensive mistakes a TBI victim can make.

When to Contact an Attorney

If you or a family member hasn’t been the same since a crash, trust that instinct — and see a medical provider promptly; the health answer comes before the legal one. Baldori Law represents brain injury victims statewide from our office in Okemos, and we know what these cases require, medically and legally. The consultation is free. Contact Baldori Law when you’re ready to talk.