Can potholes cause brain injuries?
 

Hey all,

I have a question about potholes, and whether they're able to cause brain injuries.

So this happened yesterday on the bus. We were going probably somewhere between 30 and 40mph when we hit a big pothole on my side of the bus. I felt the impact, and I worried about it, but I forgot about it until I got off the bus 5 minutes later. However, as I got up to leave, I fealt that my tailbone was tender and aching, making me think that the impact was worse than I thought.

30 minutes later, I felt a bit off, and began to get a nauseous feeling, almost like a nervous stomach. Im not sure if this is due to the pothole, or the anxiety that had grown from it. It continued until I got home, and slowely went away.

My tailbone is still hurting, but i'm concerned that the other symptoms may be from brain injury. Would this be possible? The bus seats are hard plastic, so I'm worried that maybe I was exposed to higher G forces.

No, the G forces from a bus ride over a pot hole is not enough to cause a brain injury. There was no more force that one would experience walking down stairs.
A tailbone on a hard plastic seat could get irritated from just the vibration.

In my case, I was getting setbacks from any kind of jarring for a long time. Driving on winter roads, hitting potholes, driving on dirt roads, etc... Every doctor said it was anxiety. I don't think that I was getting concussions obviously, but do think it was probably neck-related, and all these impacts were causing some kind of neck tension or something.

Currently, this issue seems to have resolved itself, but I still try to avoid potholes or bumps in the head (I do get some anxiety from these, but nothing more).