Kind of hard to come out of a car accident without soft tissue damage.

What can happen is that the spinal cord is essentially bruised (traumatic myelopathy). The swelling puts pressure on the nerves, meaning they can't transmit properly.

When the swelling goes down, the damaged nerves can regrow - but it is a very slow process. During this time, patients can experience pain as the nerves "wake up." If the damage/injury is severe, some nerves may never reactivate.

Nerve damage can be detected during neurological examination. There are a number of tests. Some of the simple ones include checking reflexes for hyper flexation, checking for sensitivity to pain and temperature change, measuring the wiggle speed of fingers, balance checks, testing saliva gland function, etc..., etc... Your neurologist might also order a specialized nerve conductivity test, like an EMG.

My nerve damage was very obvious. My MRI revealed a spinal cord injury and I had hard to miss symptoms including: insensitivity to pain/temperature; facial ticks; drooping eyes; dry mouth; tingling; involuntary movements (like a hand that would just shoot open - and stay that way); severe ear pain, with periodic deafness; poor grip strength; general weakness; bladder control issues; swallowing problems, etc...

As far as I know, there is no medical procedure that can repair damage nerve. Stabilizing the neck is important, but then, it's mostly a waiting game. Most of the treatment for nerve damage centres on pain/symptom control. Among the drugs commonly used are Lyrica and Tegretol.