Neck Pain After a Crash? Don't Wait to Find Out What It Means

Neck pain after a car crash often gets written off as a simple strain. It isn’t always that simple. If neck pain comes with arm numbness, weakness or balance trouble, a cervical spine injury may involve the spinal cord or the nerves leaving it. That needs prompt medical evaluation. This page explains what those symptoms can mean, which records matter, and how New Mexico’s filing deadlines work.

Neck Pain and Arm Numbness After a Crash: Why Prompt Evaluation Matters

Neck pain with arm numbness, weakness or balance trouble should be checked promptly. Those symptoms can point to nerve or spinal cord involvement. Neck pain alone doesn’t always point there. Only a medical evaluation can tell which applies to you.

Symptoms can also change over the first days after a crash. Waiting to see whether they fade can delay a diagnosis that matters for your health.

El Gringo Law represents people hurt in car accidents, trucking crashes and other serious injuries, including spinal cord and catastrophic injuries. For more on that work, see our spinal cord injury claims overview. Josh Wood is the lawyer responsible for this page, and he is licensed in New Mexico and Arizona. You can reach the firm through its contact page.

Cervical Spine Injury vs. Spinal Cord Injury: What the Difference Means

A cervical spine injury damages the bones, discs or ligaments of the neck. A spinal cord injury involves the nerve tissue running through them. The cervical spine is the upper part of the spine, made of seven vertebrae. The spinal cord runs through the hollow center of those bones. Nerve roots branch out between the vertebrae to reach the arms and hands.

Crashes can cause several kinds of neck injury. Common ones include fractures, ligament tears, herniated or bulging discs, and soft-tissue strains. A disc or fracture can press on the cord or a nerve root. That pressure is why arm and hand symptoms can appear even when the neck feels mostly like a strain.

Doctors classify spinal cord injuries with a standardized neurological exam and the ASIA Impairment Scale. The International Standards for Neurological Classification of Spinal Cord Injury describes this method. A PMC article on chronic whiplash and incomplete spinal cord injury examines the possible link between those two conditions. An injury that doesn’t show on first imaging can still matter. Whether more testing is needed is a decision for the treating doctor.

Symptoms That Call for Same-Day Medical Care After a Crash

Get checked the same day if you notice numbness, tingling or burning in your arms, hands or fingers. Arm or hand weakness, dropping objects, and trouble walking or keeping your balance also call for same-day care. So does neck pain that spreads into the shoulders or arms.

Some signs mean you shouldn’t wait. Call 911 or go to an emergency room right away if you lose movement or feeling in an arm or leg. The same goes for new trouble controlling your bladder or bowels, or weakness that gets worse quickly. These signs can point to serious damage to the spinal cord.

Tell the medical provider about every symptom, including the ones that seem minor. Dizziness, numbness that comes and goes, and pain that moves belong in the record. Describe each one in your own words. An early visit helps doctors find out what is happening, and it starts a record from the beginning.

Why the Timing of Symptoms Matters for Your Claim

Symptoms that start days after a crash can still be tied to it. The medical record has to make that link clear. Under New Mexico’s uniform jury instruction on causation, an act, omission or condition is a legal cause of an injury if it contributes to bringing about the injury and has a reasonable, significant connection to it. It need not be the only cause, and the instruction’s clause asking whether the injury would have happened without it is an optional, bracketed clause that is not used in every case (UJI 13-305).

The jury instruction on causation adds a useful point. An act, omission or condition is a cause if it contributes to bringing about the injury and is reasonably connected as a significant link to the injury. It “need not be the only explanation for the injury, nor the reason that is nearest in time or place” (UJI 13-305 NMRA). Late-starting symptoms don’t disqualify a claim by themselves.

Gaps in treatment are different. An insurer can use a long gap to argue that an injury came from something else. Keep your appointments and follow the treatment plan your doctor gives you. Each visit adds to a medical timeline that connects the crash to your symptoms.

Records to Keep After a New Mexico Car Crash

Keep every record that shows what happened, what hurt and what it cost. Start a folder on day one. Include the police or crash report, emergency and urgent care notes, and imaging such as X-rays, CT scans and MRIs. Add physical therapy notes, prescriptions, and every medical bill or insurance explanation of benefits.

New Mexico law requires a driver in an accident resulting in bodily injury to or death of any person, or total property damage to an apparent extent of $500 or more, to send a written report to the department of transportation within five days (§ 66-7-207). Investigating officers also have deadlines for their reports. Ask for a copy of the crash report.

Write a symptom journal. Record the date, each symptom, how severe it is, what you can’t do, and any missed work or household tasks. Photograph the vehicles, the scene, visible injuries and any braces. Write down witness names and phone numbers. Keep pay stubs and employer letters for lost wages. Log every call and letter from an adjuster, with the adjuster’s name and the claim number.

Don’t give a recorded statement or sign a release until you understand what it covers. New Mexico law bars a person whose interest is or may become adverse to an injured person from negotiating a settlement, seeking a general release, or obtaining a statement for use in negotiating a settlement or obtaining a release, within fifteen days from the date of the occurrence, when the injured person is under the care of a person licensed to practice the healing arts or confined to a hospital or sanitarium as a patient (§ 41-1-1). Any settlement agreement, release of liability, or written statement from the injured party is void unless it is acknowledged by the injured party before a notary public who has no interest adverse to the injured person (§ 41-1-1). Bring these records to your consultation.

New Mexico Deadlines: Personal Injury Filing Time Limits

New Mexico’s general deadline for a personal injury lawsuit is three years. Actions for an injury to the person or reputation of any person must be brought within three years (NMSA § 37-1-8).

Claims against a government entity or public employee have a shorter clock. Actions against a governmental entity or a public employee for torts are forever barred unless commenced within two years after the date of occurrence resulting in loss, injury or death, except that a minor under the full age of seven years has until his ninth birthday to file (NMSA § 41-4-15). Under the Tort Claims Act, a person claiming damages from the state or a local public body has ninety days after the occurrence to give the designated government office a written notice describing the time, place and circumstances of the loss or injury. For a wrongful death claim, that notice may be presented within six months after the date of the injury that resulted in the death (NMSA § 41-4-16). A suit may still proceed without that written notice if the governmental entity had actual notice of the occurrence. The notice period also does not count up to ninety days during which the injured person is incapacitated from giving notice by reason of injury. Those short periods are easy to miss.

If you were partly at fault, ask about your claim anyway. Waiting to gather records can use up time, so start early. Ask about your own deadline at the consultation.

Next Steps: Get Your Neck Injury and Claim Reviewed

If neck pain, arm numbness or weakness followed your crash, a review can help you decide what comes next. You may be weighing whether to pursue a claim now or wait for more medical information. Either way, you don’t need to sort it out alone.

Our team can talk through the crash, your symptoms and the records you have. Your first consultation is free, confidential and comes with no obligation to continue. Reach out through the contact form, or start a chat on our site. Josh Wood is the responsible lawyer for this page.

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